The Ax and the Arrow
by JMasonD7
Summary: Young, angry Johanna Mason is selected for the 74th Hunger Games. The girl with the ax meets the girl with the arrows. Joniss ensues! AU trilogy. Enjoy and review! Rated M for later chapters. The last chapter is the alternate non-Joniss ending.
1. Beauty like an arrow to the head

When I was little, I loved taking baths. I would slide beneath the water and thin film of soap and submerge myself in the cold bathwater. Cold, of course, because I would soak so long that the fire beneath the tub would have long gone out. Not wanting to waste firewood, even though we were tucked away in the capitol of firewood - Seven, I sat in the cold water and rubbed the gooseflesh on my skin. I'd pretend I was a mermaid or pirate, regaling myself with old tales my father would tell me before bed, of dashing pirates and unscrupulous kings and queens. My distaste for authority and law and order sprung from the seeds of those stories he planted in my head before dreams. I idolized the swashbuckling pirate, not the stuffy king.

My favorite part of the baths, though, was dipping my head under the water so the sound of the falling trees and chopping of wood became a distant, foggy din. Everything sounded soothing and muted when I was in the water. I could be a mermaid, living in my underwater castle. Or a pirate diving in the deep, blue ocean for some buried treasure.

That muted calm was what it sounded like when the escort called my name for the Reaping. "Johanna Mason" she had stated. So loudly. So clearly. Without even a flinch as she withdrew the slip. I don't give a second look toward the girls flanking my left and my right. They don't mean anything to me, and I don't want to see their pity. I walked straight up to the stage and folded my hands in front of me, like I had seen other Tributes do on other Games.

She called the boy, but I didn't hear his name. He looked vaguely familiar. Older than me, though. I think he worked as a woodsman, just having left school. Nectar. Something flowery or plant-like. Our escort, the green-and-brown-clothed Capitol woman, ushered us into our rooms. My father was there, but not really offering any words of comfort. What do you say in a time like this? Don't die? See you never? My father whispered some words of encouragement in my ear, handing me a chocolate truffle - my favorite - and soon I was off the train to the Capitol.

74th Hunger Games, here I come.

...

In spite of the circumstances, I can't say I entirely loathed the trip. We ate foods I had never seen and some I got quite a taste for. Lamb stew, some kind of squash boat filled with sausage, and a spinach casserole that I would literally slit someone's throat for. Our Mentor Blight is a pleasant enough guy but truth be told, I don't know how he won his Games. All the other people must have killed themselves, or drowned like the time that girl from Four won, because he isn't all that smart or all that strong. But he doesn't bullshit me on my chances, so I decide to like him.

On our way there, we watched the recap of all the Reapings. All of them are pretty standard except when we get to Twelve. Typically Twelve is a sad little miner's kid, sooty and overall kind of depressing. But this year it's a strong blonde-haired boy, and a volunteer. In all of my memory I can't remember when anyone outside of One, Two, and Four had ever volunteered. But this girl does. She's got a long, brown braid with bangs that curtain a pair of steady grey eyes. Her skin is the olive tone that many people from that area called the Seam had. She's beautiful. But everyone looks more beautiful when they're doomed to death. Is any picture of Joan of Arc more alluring than the one of her on the stake?

"My, a volunteer, how uncommon!" my escort squeals, clapping her hands excitedly. My raised eyebrow and Nectar's impassive look took the wind out of her sails pretty quickly. She clears her throat, pursing her gold lips together. "This will be an exciting year."

"Thrilling," I reply, shaking my head and returning my attention to my chocolate dessert. I was full hours earlier, but I couldn't stop myself. We didn't get these kinds of decadent desserts back in Seven. I had only tastes chocolates on special occasions like weddings or birthdays, and of course, just before I left for the Capitol. I always despised the people from the Capitol, but I think if my world was filled with this chocolate, I'd be a real asshole, too.

That night, the volunteer from Twelve somehow appears, unbidden, in my dreams.

* * *

The Remake Center is definitely one of the Seven Circles of Hell. After I've been doused, plucked, scrubbed and rubbed, I meet my stylist, a woman who introduces herself as Hiss. Her given name is actually Hiss. Appropriately, her eyes have been altered to look like a snake, her skin painted to look like shimmering scales. If she hadn't opened her stupid mouth and made a high-pitched tea kettle noise she calls a voice, she would have been kind of frightening.

She circles me for a few minutes, eyeing my naked form with a few nods of her head. I've never been ashamed of my body - nakedness wasn't some kind of cause for recoil in Seven. And besides, I'm seventeen, I'm in good shape, and I apparently look "much more attractive without all that hair" as one prep team member had been so kind as to tell me. Finally, she speaks again. "Well I think it's a no-brainer, isn't it?"

"Trees?" I ask in a glum voice, my distaste for her style and for her, in general, hopefully coming through.

"Yes, trees, but more than trees. What do trees make?"

"Fire?" I ask hopefully.

She shook her head. "Paper!"

...

I look like a child's discarded art project. Nectar and I are dressed in complimentary white outfits, his almost resembling a knight's armor, but made of paper. I have a large headdress that peaks out from my black hair like a bird of paradise or a fucked up peacock. Either way, we look absolutely ridiculous as our chariot made its way around the Capitol. The crowd enjoys it a little.

When I see Twelve, I can't hide my shock. My jaw hangs open like it's trying to catch flies, my eyes glued to the large screen projecting ("Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark!") the loud voice tells me. _Katniss Everdeen. _The name sounds vaguely familiar, but I had forgotten it after watching the Reapings. They are stunning, flames shooting from their coal-black outfits. She plays the crowd well for a girl from the poor mines - blowing kisses, catching roses, flashing a dazzling - if a little forced - smile that even makes a tingle of giddiness go through me.

We reconvene by the elevators, and I watch the Careers glower at the two kids from Twelve. They're jealous. Typically One steals the show with their alabaster white horses and ridiculously fit and good-looking Tributes, but this year it's Twelve - mostly Katniss - who steal the show. Though Peeta seems to have his fair share of admirers, I note, as I see a few of the girls eyeing him shyly.

But the way he looks at Katniss, an unreturned look of adoration, makes me think they don't stand a chance. Katniss, for her part, seems oblivious. She's got a hunter's presence about her - calculating, nervous but also attuned to her surroundings. She can sense people coming up behind her before their footsteps make a sound. She will be formidable in the arena, I realize, even if she doesn't know it yet.

* * *

That exact skill is how I meet her for the first time. I manage to escape my team - and Nectar - and go to the roof of the Capitol building. It's breathtaking out here - the starless sky, the warm wind, the view of the snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the vibrantly colored city below - it almost takes me out of my continuous funk that I've been in since my name was called.

"I didn't think anyone else would be out here," her voice calls, nearly startling me off the edge of the roof. I'm straddling the cement divider, swinging my right leg over the edge. A few kicked rocks proved that there was some kind of force field down there, possibly to prevent suicide.

I look over at her, her green-grey eyes shining in the glow of the fluorescents. She has a beauty like an arrow through the head - unexpected, and sudden. Not like the Careers who are textbook gorgeous, but in a bland, predictable way. I don't answer her, and she continues toward me anyway. "Is it okay if I sit out here?"

I make a welcoming gesture in front of me, unable to take my eyes off of hers. I know that it's stupid - I might have to kill her, she very well might kill me - but tonight we aren't enemies. No harm in a little indulgence. Especially if it's harmless, like me staring at her like I've gone daft. "Katniss," she says, extending her hand. She position mirrors mine, her legs astride the edge of the roof.

A smile pushes its way on to my face, in spite of me deliberately asking it not to. "Everyone knows who you are by now," I deride, smirking at her. "Johanna Mason." I shake her hand, then drop it back next to my side.

Her nose scrunches a little in thought and I can't help the tightening in my chest at how stupidly adorable it looks. "Seven?"

I nod. "What gave it away, my origami costume?"

She laughs, a sound that she seems almost unfamiliar with. Probably not much to laugh about when your family is starving, or your parents dead in mining accidents and such. We have our fair share of hardships in Seven, but not the rampant poverty like in Twelve. "You looked amazing," I say, with a little bit of jealousy behind my tone. She picks up on it and blushes.

"Cinna is amazing. I just wore the costume. He ..he did all the magic."

I snorted. "Don't sell yourself short, Twelve." I hopped off the edge and back on to the roof, brushing my pants off. "I'll put it this way - it didn't look nearly as good on the boy as it did on you." With a chuckle I turned and went toward the exit, giving her a wave over my shoulder. "See you around, Katniss."

* * *

The next morning at training I find Katniss and Peeta at the knot-tying station. My jaw clenches unexpectedly at how conversational and intimate they look. I go to the wrestling station, strip off my outfit, and oil down to practice with the advisor there. He's an older gentleman, clearly Capitol, and unfazed but amused by my nakedness. His eyes search around me, and I know what he's thinking. _Who are you doing this for? _As his eyes settle back on me, I shake my head.

He gives me instructions based on his evaluation of my strength. Being from the lumber district, I have a reserve of upper arm strength hidden by my small stature. Not enough to take down the monsters from One or Two, but enough to take someone by surprise. The man - his name was Ajax - gives me pretty solid advice on taking someone larger down.

We continue to fight, and when I look up as my hands are pushing his shoulders, I lock eyes with Katniss. I smirk. She's been watching me. I can see Peeta talking to her, and the flush of embarrassment on her face as she turns back to him. Unfortunately, I'm distracted and Ajax manages to pin me on the ground. "Ow, what the fuck," I whine, but he continues his hold on me.

"And if I had a knife, Seven, you'd be dead." He stands up, offering his hand to me. I take it, reluctantly, and begin pulling my uniform back on. "So what happened?"

I glower at him. "What do you mean, what happened? You're like 150 pounds heavier than me. That's what happened. _Gravity_ happened."

He laughs, shaking his long blonde hair. "You were distracted." He turns, appraising the scattered group of tributes. "So which one is it?"

My glare hardens as I walk passed him. "Thanks for the training."

...

The next three days are an interesting game of cat and mouse. I watch the two of them move through the stations, ignoring the archery and the weightlifting, until on one of the last days, I'm at the archery station. I'm piss-poor at archery. My mother was a great hunter, back when she was alive, and she would kill all sorts of wild animals for us to eat. Trade some in at the market, barter for fabric for clothes. Katniss reminds me a little of her - she had an understated beauty as well.

The woman running the archery station is a dolt. Instead of giving me any pointers, she simply turns the machine on and boredly drones about where to hit the target. I miss all of them, my arrows flying in all different directions, and never at the target. Luckily no one is at the archery station, so I'm not embarrassed. Not that it matters, they can think I'm weak all day. It will only benefit me in the end.

"I know _where_, you fucking idiot, I just don't know how!" I hiss at her, finally jolting her to attention. The door behind me opens and closes, and I whirl around with my bow drawn ...poorly. Immediately I drop it, seeing Katniss standing bemusedly in the doorway.

"It's your elbow," she says, like she's addressing a child. I sneer at her. Unperturbed by my anger, she motions for me to shoot. "Get in position, like you see something in the distance you can take down."

Begrudgingly I follow her instructions. I don't know why she's helping me. But when she comes around my back and places her hands on my arms, I completely lose my senses. Her hand encloses mine, forcing me to pull back harder on the bow. It hurts my fingers, but her warm breath on my neck acts like an anesthetic. Her hand drags down the length of my forearm, then lifts my elbow so it's at a right angle with the floor.

Her other arm stretches against mine, her hand wrapping around my fist that's next to the arrow. She pushes it a little upward. "Keep your elbow parallel with the ground, and keep the arrow just above the mark. If you want the eye, aim at the hairline. Take into consideration distance. Say, for every few feet, add an inch or two above your mark."

I try to settle into something resembling a comforting position, but with her front pressed against my back and her arms around me, I have to keep reminding myself to breathe in and out, never mind where to put the goddamn bow. "Okay, relax." I don't. I can't. "Breathe, Johanna," she practically whispers into my ear. I try to relax. I fail again. I try to imagine myself back in my bathtub in Seven, head under the water. But instead I imagine Katniss in the bathtub and I'm back where I started, tense and irritable. With a small sigh she nods. "Okay, now release." Her voice sounds like nails down my spine and I shake out an involuntary shudder.

I release. I let the arrow fly and finally, after an hour of this nonsense, I take down the digital figure coming toward me. It explodes into what looks like blocks, scattering on the ground and disappearing. I can't help but grin proudly. Katniss is looking up at me, an unreadable expression on her face. "Thanks," I manage, my proud grin deteriorating into a small, lopsided smile.

She nods. A playful grin appears on her features. "Now do you have any tricks you'd like to show me?"

In any other context, this would be suggestive and I would be _loving _it, but I don't take it that way. I feel like this was all a ruse to find out what I was good at. So she and the blonde boy can take me down. My lips set into a line. I don't like to be tricked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Her eyebrow raises in surprise. "I would." It's hard for me to tell if she's being genuine or not. I decide to assume she's trying to fuck with me.

I sneer, handing her the bow and quiver of arrows gruffly. I basically thrust them into her arms. She takes them with surprise, even what I think might be hurt crossing her features. "Why? So you and blondie can slice my throat? Get real, Twelve."

I storm out of the archery range, practically shoving into Peeta on my way out the door. How foolish of me, to think she just wanted to help me out of the goodness of her heart. No, she just wanted information. Everyone here was out for his or herself. Well, I count myself among them because that's what I'm after as well.

Screw the girl from District Twelve. Who needs her anyway?

* * *

**A/N: Even with finals rapidly approaching, I can't seem to stop interpreting Hunger Games into Joniss fics. It's a harmless addiction, though, right? ...right? OH WELL. This will get more rapidly AU as I progress. **


	2. Really brave or really crazy

Despite my best efforts at looking mediocre, I get a ten. Blight looks at me knowingly. _He thinks I used an ax. _What I really did was go in there, toss an ax straight at the wall, and storm out without being dismissed. My ten is not for skill. It's a target. They've painted a huge target on my back with that score. Luckily, Katniss gets an eleven. An eleven! She must have shot her bow. But even so, even if she's as good with her bow as I am with an ax, she must have done something else to piss them off.

I can't help but feel a little proud of her. Fuck these people and their Games. That's what I want to tell Caesar Flickerman when I meet him, but Blight has cautioned me not to. He's advised me to play down my ten, to brush it off as much as I can. When we practice together what I'm to say, he gets very frustrated with me.

Humility is not exactly my strong suit.

"Everything you're saying sounds arrogant," Blight says tiredly, rubbing his forehead. We've been pretending to be at my interview for four hours. My time with my escort was easy; I can walk in heels and present myself with grace. I wasn't raised in a barn. But actually _saying _things with grace, well, I fail on a lot of points.

I glare at him. "Because I _am _arrogant. I'm an arrogant son of a bitch."

"Well good for you, Jo, but I don't think that's going to get you sponsors."

I scoff. "As if you were going to get me sponsors anyway." He looks hurt and I put my hands on my hips triumphantly.

He lowers his voice as he rises from his chair. "I will do my best for you, and for Nectar. I don't know what you think of me. Probably very little, but I didn't win my Games by accident, Johanna." The way he speaks, so softly and with deliberation, makes me feel a pang of guilt for having been so obnoxious the last few hours. He has been trying to help, in a roundabout way. And I do think he'll try and get me sponsors. But with how attractive the Careers are this year, and how captivating Katniss is, it will be tough to find anything for anyone else.

It suddenly dawns on me that I might ...need allies. The thought disgusts me to my very core. I hated everyone in that training room. The girl from Five was all right. The cripple from Ten was useless. The little girl from Eleven I just felt plain bad for. I guess I could try to befriend the ones from Four, but I imagine One and Two got to them first. Stupid Glimmer and her beautiful blonde hair, and Cato with his giant muscles. And Two...Marvel, the kid who threw a spear so accurately it almost went through the walls of the training center. And Clove, that arrogant little bitch.. I actually liked her a lot. But it was no use, they were not going to want to align with some loner from Seven. If I won, I'd be the only living female Victor in Seven. The last one died five years ago, and she won in one of the first couple of Games.

My best bet was probably Katniss and Peeta. However, doing so would mean I need to apologize for my behavior in the archery range.

...Again, humility is not my strong suit.

* * *

Before we go on stage, Peeta is being spoken to by their Mentor, Haymitch, while Katniss dodges glares from the Careers. I roll my eyes at their abashed jealousy and stride over to her. She looks wary of me and I try to smile. "Don't worry about them. They're just jealous you scored higher than they did. Especially that little thing from Two."

We both look in Clove's direction and if that girl's eyes could throw daggers like her hands, both of us would be dead in a heartbeat. Katniss' lips ghost a smile as she looks at me. "Thanks."

I bite the inside of my cheek, fumbling with my hands in front of me awkwardly. "Look, I'm not good at apologies, Twelve, but I'm sorry I snapped at you in the archery range. I just..." I take a look around at the other Tributes, talking amongst each other. "I don't trust anyone."

"I wasn't trying to sniff out a weakness," Katniss explains evenly. "I was trying to help."

"I know that," I snap back. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to will myself more patience like a parachute in the arena. I open my eyes and look into hers, briefly getting a little lost in her endless grey orbs. "Axes. I'm good with axes. Like, really good. Like I could split a hair from fifteen feet away good." Katniss smiles and nods, taking in this information. "Are you nervous? About your interview?"

She nods again. "Yeah. Cinna told me to just be myself, but...I'm not good at making friends. Haymitch says I don't have any charm." She chuckles, but from the hint of pain in her eyes, I can tell she's genuinely hurt by that comment.

I glance at her. "Are you kidding? This town is already in love with you. Your defender-of-the-helpless act, which is not an act and makes you insufferable," I rib, nudging her with my elbow. "That's who you are. You're a fighter. You've got spunk. They'll see it. Just get them talking about your little sister. What's her name?"

"Prim."

"Right, Prim," I repeat, nodding my head. "Talk about Prim. You'll be fine, Twelve." I pat her on the shoulder and take my leave as I watch Peeta approaching. I don't know why I'm encouraging her. More love for Katniss means less sponsors for me, but hell. I didn't volunteer for my sister, not that I have one. If anyone deserves to win these Games other than me, it should probably be her.

* * *

I don't get a chance to ask to be allies. After Peeta's stunt with his confession, my time with Twelve is up. Any hope I had of possibly teaming with Katniss fly out the window and into the distance like stardust.

I tuck my token - a little baby pinecone on a necklace that is very pungent - into my shirt. In a haze I eat breakfast, go through the tunnels to the launching area, and the next thing I know I'm on the platform, waiting for the cannon to go off. I scan the arena. I can see a few Tributes, but my view of Katniss is obscured by the Cornucopia. This giant metal horn is glistening with supplies and weapons, beckoning me to come near it. I can see the axes from here. I want them. Blight's words of wisdom, of course, echo in my brain. _Get to water. Get out of there. Pick up a few things and run as fast as you can. _I'm a fast runner. Probably not as fast as Clove or Rue, or even the elusive girl from Five, but I'm fast enough.

Not fast enough to get there and get out alive, though, I realize. The cannon goes off, Claudius Templesmith calls that the Games have begun, and I'm off. I grab a few things scattered by my platform - a sleeping roll, something that looks like matches, and a small blood red backpack. I can see Glimmer running toward me, a bow over her shoulder and a spear in her arm. _That bow and arrow don't belong to you_, I think. I become determined to get them from her. But not now.

I turn as quickly as I can and take off toward the woods, hearing Cato call out to her to ignore me.

I'm on my own.

...

Finding water is relatively easy. There are a few springs that run, dumping into nothing except back into the ground. But the water is fresh and there are a few fish to be caught (if I knew how) so I decide to settle in a small cave near one of the man-made spring origins. I've got some provisions; the backpack had a few nuts and one roll, and my sleeping bag will help keep me warm, even though it's way too small for me and only comes up to my waist. What I thought was matches is indeed matches, but they're different than anything I've seen at home. There are ten. I take one out and examine it. On a whim, I dip it in water and strike it against the rock. It lights immediately. Well that's helpful.

I put it in the water, remove it, and it continues to stay alight. That's _extremely_ helpful. I stub it out on a rock and return the matches into my backpack. Night has begun to fall, so since I can't hear anyone and it seems safe, I cover my sleeping roll in mud and tuck myself into the cave.

That night I watch the sky for the fallen Tributes. Nectar is gone. My twinge of guilt is only soothed by the thought that maybe that means I might get more sponsors. It's selfish, but selfishness is all I have in the absence of allies. Still, there's too many left, even though a lot of people died in the initial bloodbath. _She's_ still alive somewhere, and I can't help but feel relieved. She finds her way into my dreams again that night.

* * *

The next morning I'm awoken by the sounds of snapping branches and footsteps pounding. Quickly I roll my sleeping bag, tuck it into my backpack and throw everything over my shoulders. I'm without a weapon, I realize grimly. Making a torch from one of these matches would be foolish, the smoke would only indicate my location. But standing here with nothing but a backpack is also a bad idea.

So I take to the trees. Climbing trees comes as easily to me as walking, since I've been doing both for about the same amount of time. In no time I'm precariously up in a dense willow, and I can see the Career pack hunting. Oddly enough, Peeta is with them. Weird. Is he diverting them from Katniss? Or leading them to her? There's no way for me to be sure.

From my vantage point high above the arena, I can see Katniss and the little girl from Eleven treed about twenty yards from me. The pack has found them, and luckily they are too high and Glimmer doesn't have the bow on her anymore._ The bow_. I want that bow. Well, I want it for Katniss. I can see Marvel has the ax. Which he either procured from the Cornucopia or ...I see the blood on it and realize he must've gotten it from Nectar. Poor kid.

It makes me kind of enraged though, and now I'm determined to arm myself from the Careers. And figure out where that bow went.

...

After a quiet meal of nuts and a few berries I found lying around, I wait until they've sent Peeta to get water to make my move. Slowly I scale down the tree, and tail the boy until he is by the water. He kneels down, unscrewing the cap of a canteen and letting the creek slowly trickle into it.

I can see the glisten of a small knife tucked into Peeta's belt. With the practiced quiet my mother taught me as an apprentice hunter, I slowly creep behind him. In one swift movement I disarm him and put the knife to his throat. I wrap my arm under his chin and lean into his ear. "Make a noise and I'll slit your throat."

"Why not just do it anyway?" he seethes, trying to pull me away from him. He's stronger than he looks, but my knife is so close to his throat he's too afraid to jerk me away.

"You have information I want."

"Doubtful, but go ahead."

"Where's Glimmer's bow?"

"What?" Exasperated I tighten my grip under his chin.

"The bow, idiot. Where is it? I know she had it, and she doesn't have it now. I want it."

"Why?"

I roll my eyes. "You don't need to know why. Do you know where it is or not?"

Before he can answer we hear the screams. Suddenly Cato, Clove and Mavel go rushing through the woods, trailed by a few hundred tracker-jackers. Peeta and I look at each other and I let him out of my grip. "You want to get it for Katniss, don't you?"

I don't have to answer him, because my guilty face says it all. He smiles. "If we go quickly, we can get to the Cornucopia before they get back from ...wherever they're going to get away from the tracker-jackers. She left it there. She sucks with it."

...

And that's how Peeta Mellark and I became allies. We got to the Cornucopia, and he was right. The Careers are not there, but some weapons are. I find an ax and put it in my belt, while Peeta stocks a backpack with some food. I put the bow around my back and sling the quiver over my shoulder. As we go back into the woods I look at him. "So you and the Careers, that was to protect Katniss from them, right?"

He nods. "Sort of. If I team with them, they can't kill me yet. If they can't kill me, I can still try and help her." He looks at the bow over my shoulder, then at me. "And what about you? When Katniss and I briefly discussed getting allies, you were the only person she mentioned. Other than Rue."

I raise my eyebrow. "It was a toss up between me and the little girl? Wow, I guess I suck more than I thought."

Peeta laughs and shakes his head. "No, she likes Rue. Pities her, I guess. Reminds her a little of Prim, I think." I nod. "But we ultimately decided against allies. We didn't even decide to trust each other. But she did mention you. Is that why you're getting her the bow? Did you have an agreement?" I'm silent and Peeta sighs. "You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want."

"No, we didn't. We didn't have an agreement or anything. I just..."

"I know." And he does. He understands this bizarre effect Katniss can have. She somehow has gotten under my skin, just like she's gotten under his. This is our tentative agreement. Allies for Katniss. We spend the rest of that night near my cave. Peeta is handy with the knife and manages to kill and cook a fish for us. It makes me feel slightly bad about being so jealous of him. He's got a sweetness, a self-deprecating niceness that I learn comes from living with older brothers who pick on him constantly. And from loneliness. Loneliness is weird. It has made Peeta nice to a fault - as if he's begging someone to love him. It made me an asshole - begging for someone to love me anyway. Strange how life turns out. Maybe in an alternate universe Peeta and I would have been friends. We would have both secretly pined for the same girl - his chances much better than mine - and both would've lost apparently to some guy named Gale that Peeta speaks of with a resigned evenness. A barely veiled jealousy. But he's so goddamn _nice _about this guy who has the hots for his girl that I want to smack him. If I were Peeta, I wouldn't be as nice to Katniss' "friend." But if I were Peeta, I never would have aligned with me.

We take turns sleeping in between our long talks. I learn a lot about him, and he about me. I talk about my mother and her untimely death. About my father and how sometimes it'll be days or weeks before I see him again, so I basically raised myself. We talk until morning, and with a pain in my heart, I realize how futile our friendship is. Neither one of us are making it out of here alive.

Peeta senses this. He has a sixth sense for people and their feelings, I've noticed. "I know this is temporary, but I'm glad I got to know you, Johanna."

I smile at him, repeatedly smacking my ax into the dirt. "Why the hell not, you know? Just because we got sent in here against our will to murder each other and get killed, who says we can't be friends? Fuck them. What better way to say fuck you to the Capitol than this?" I ask, my voice slightly raised. Peeta looks around warily, at the buzzing of the insect cameras that I've chosen to ignore. "Who cares? They're going to kill me anyway."

Peeta chuckles softly, gathering our meager belongings and throwing his backpack over his shoulder. "You're either really brave or really crazy."

I smirk. "Probably a little bit of both." I look around at the woods, now illuminated by the high sun. "We should try to find Katniss. Give her this stupid bow."

...

We don't find her, but the Careers find us. Cato and Marvel come bursting through the woods, trailed by Clove. Peeta and I take off as fast as we can, with me being much faster than he is. Maybe not faster, but more agile. I leap over bushes and fallen trees, looking back periodically to see Peeta being overtaken by Cato. "No!" I shout, twisting and launching my ax toward him. I miss. It lodges in a tree and I can hear Clove's cackle. It sends fire running through my veins.

The sound of a knife being plunged into flesh burns into my mind. Peeta's strangled cry. My own shrill scream. Clove's laugh. I pull the bow from around me, and aim it at them. "Try it!" Clove taunts, flashing her knifes from within her jacket.

I cant my head and aim the arrow higher. It draws the Careers' attention upward, where another tracker-jacker nest is in the branch above their heads. "Take one step toward me and I'll do to you what Katniss did to Glimmer." I can't be sure Katniss killed Glimmer with the bees Peeta and I saw, but the guess is right with how Cato snarls at me. They also don't know how shitty I am with the bow. I look confident, so that helps.

"We'll come back for you, bitch." Cato motions for them to leave, and I stand there with the bow drawn as taut as it can go, my chest heaving hard with adrenaline and fear. When they are safely out of range, I drop the bow on the ground and rush over to Peeta.

There's so much blood. It seeps through his shirt and on to the ground, soaking the dirt. The wound is clearly fatal, but with no cannon, he's struggling to hang on. I press my hand over the wound to stop the bleeding. "Come on, Peeta. Don't die on me." I use my free hand to push hair from his sweaty forehead. Tears prick the corners of my eyes as I watch him convulse. Nobody this good should have to die like this.

"Protect.." he coughs, turning his head to the side to spit coagulated blood on to the leaves. I wince, still trying to hold his intestines in with my hands. "Protect her," he forces out, blood trickling from his mouth and coating his white teeth. His eyes roll back in his head, then his eyelids flutter closed.

"No, no, come on," I plead to no one, but as the cannon goes off above my head, I let out the tears I've been holding since I was reaped. Tears for my mother, my father, for Peeta, for myself. My tears drop on to his shirt, and I use my forearm to wipe them away, since both my hands are covered in his blood. I hear the buzz of the hovercraft and I try to regain my bearings. I take his backpack and his bracelet, which must be his token. I slide it over my wrist, getting a thin coat of blood on it. I step away from his body, allowing the claw to come and scoop him up. I press my three fingers to my lips, putting blood on my face, then salute his rising corpse in Twelve's traditional salute.

After it disappears into the clouds, I pull my ax from the tree and tuck it into my belt. Now I have to find Katniss.

* * *

When I do, she and Rue are around a small fire they've made. Katniss stands up as she hears me approach, a knife in her palm. I hold up my hands, bloodied and dirty. "Simmer down, Twelve. I come bearing gifts."

I shrug the bow off my shoulder and throw it to her. She catches it and looks at my quzizically. Her gaze lowers to my bloody hands and outfit, narrowing as she inspects me. I toss her the quiver. She arms herself with both and looks at me. "How do I know you aren't here to kill me?"

I sigh. "Because I would've fu-" I look at Rue. "I would have done it already." Katniss relaxes a little, sitting back down next to their small fire. I sit down with them, warming my hands over the fire.

Rue examines my hand, taking it in her own. "What happened?"

My eyes are still burning hot from my tears and I look at her, then to Katniss. "Peeta."

Katniss scrambles to her feet so fast I barely blink. She draws her bow and points it at me. Rue's eyes widen in surprise and she backs away from both of us. I can see the tears in Katniss' eyes threatening to fall. "You killed him?" she hisses at me, her fingers gripping the bow.

"No!' I object, shaking my head. "I didn't kill him. Cato ...we were trying to find you after I got the bow and we got ambushed. I tried...I fucking tried, okay?" I'm hoarse now, choking out my words. More tears fall from my eyes. "I watched him die. I watched it." I look up at Katniss. "If you want to kill me, just do it, okay?"

Slowly she sits back down, placing the bow at her side. I sniffle mucus back into my nose, wiping it with my arm again. Katniss stares into the fire, unable to speak to me. "Was it quick?" she asks finally.

If I don't tell her the truth, she'll only watch it after she wins and is back on stage with Caesar. They'll throw salt in the wound and make her watch everyone die, especially Peeta. "Yes," I lie. Who cares? I won't be around to get yelled at for lying. "Stabbed. It was quick."

She nods, then pours some dirt onto the fire, snuffing out the flames. She looks at my provisions, her eyes glossy with unshed tears. "Do you have anything good?"

I nod. I take out my backpack, dumping my provisions on the ground. In the moonlight we can see what we have - two knives, some night vision glasses, a small package of nuts, my ax, Katniss' bow and arrows, and three rolls. Enough for at least another half a day. But now that Katniss has her bow, she can hunt while I protect her. "My sleeping roll will fit you," I say to Rue, handing it to her. "It only comes up to my waist. It's really warm, though."

She smiles at me. "Thanks." Her voice, so tiny and innocent, makes me smile back at her. What cruel fucking system put this adorable little girl in this death trap? My anger at the Capitol boils back to the surface. The injustice of Peeta's death and Rue's imminent demise as well.

"What about you?" Katniss asks, gathering up our things and putting them into two bags.

"What _about_ me?"

She sighs. "For sleeping."

"Oh." I hadn't actually thought of that. I shrug. "I'll camp out down here, if you guys want to take up to the trees. We can switch watch. I'll sleep in your roll while you watch."

Katniss nods. "Well, at least watch from up in the trees. Don't stay down here. I don't know where the rest of them are, but there's still a lot of them. Cato, Marvel, Clove..."

"Thresh," Rue adds.

"Right, Thresh...Foxface.."

I snort. "Foxface?" Rue giggles.

Katniss blushes. "That's what I nicknamed the girl from Five." I nod for her to continue. "So that leaves five of them, plus the three of us. Anyway, let's just get up there. Cato has the glasses, too. So who knows if they'll come hunting in the middle of the night?" She's right, so the three of us settle up in the shade and protection of one of the larger willow trees.

...

It's fucking freezing. Unreasonably cold, considering how hot it's been during the day. I shiver, pulling my jacket tighter over my body. I try to put my tongue between my teeth to keep them from chattering, but I only succeed in making my tongue bleed and filling my mouth with blood. "Johanna, just sleep with me."

"What?" I whisper, my eyes wide in surprise.

Katniss rolls her eyes and unzips the side of her bag. "Get in the bag with me. You can keep watch and still be warm. No use in you freezing to death."

I shake my head. No fucking way am I getting into a sleeping bag with Katniss Everdeen. Not with how unnerved I was at just her light touch in the archery range.

"Don't be stubborn. You're of no use to me frozen and dead. Get in here quickly before I get cold too." I sigh and make my way over to her, sliding my body next to hers. Not just next to, but _against_. The warmth is immediate, and not unwelcome. My body is warm not only from the sleeping roll, but also the contact of Katniss' body against mine. It's on fire. The girl on fire indeed.

I try hard to control my breathing, taking in long and deep breaths. It isn't long before Katniss is lulled back into sleep, during which her arm snakes around my waist. She hugs me tightly, murmuring something unintelligible into my neck. The feeling of her hot breath gliding over my skin is driving me crazy. I'll have no trouble staying awake tonight. I might pay for it in the morning, but for now this is probably the closest to happy I'll get for the rest of my life. Since the rest of my life is probably a day or two away from being over.

She has no idea, the effect she can have.

* * *

**A/N: Wow thanks for the positive response to this fic! I'm sorry this is so filler-y. I promise more Joniss to come. I'm also sorry about killing Peeta, but...sacrifices must be made for the greater good. Aka Joniss. I'm actually close to finished with the next chapter (because class was cancelled, yay!) so I'll be posting that shortly.**

To my Spanish-speaking reader: Gracias! Gracias por tomarse el tiempo para traducir esta historia y léala. Espero que os guste y gracias por los comentarios positivos. :)


	3. If you go, I go

When we wake that morning, we devise a plan. They explain to me that the Careers have now mined the Cornucopia (probably after Peeta and I robbed it), so hunting them down will be easier if we could blow the whole thing up. Cut off their supply, make them weak. A weak Cato is a less formidable Cato. We don't speak about what will happen afterward.

Katniss will go to the Cornucopia and try to set off the mines, while Rue and I will distract the Careers away from the area with fires. We eat a small breakfast, then prepare and arm ourselves for the journey ahead. Katniss stretches out the bow, getting used to the weight. "Different from back home?" I ask her, walking over to where she's aimed at a tree. Rue has gone to collect a few berries a few yards away.

"A little heavier, but not so different." She looks passed me to Rue, who is whistling a happy tune as she collects some red berries from a bush. I don't know if I was ever as happy as she is, even as a child. "If something happens..."

The announcer booms from the sky before I can answer her. A rule change. A rule change? There aren't any rules in here, other than the one about stepping off your platform too early, and the unspoken agreement of not eating each other. Everything else is fair game. "Two tributes will be declared winner, regardless of district, if they are the same gender."

Same gender? I look at the three of us. They want to split us up. They want us to turn on each other. Because if only two can survive, one in our tentative trio is going to die. Better than two, I suppose, but it's still patently unfair. Rue looks up at us expectantly.

"Don't worry about it," I interrupt, looking to Katniss. "I will protect her. You have my word. For whatever that's worth," I joke with a smirk. "Just try to not die, okay? I like having you around, Twelve."

Katniss rolls her eyes, but looks genuinely touched at my comment. We share a look, a strange look that makes a shudder run through me (hopefully unnoticed), but it's interrupted by Rue shoving berries at us. "Thank you," Katniss says, popping one in her mouth and tucking the rest in her pocket. "Well, I guess I'll see you guys in a bit, if this goes well."

I attempt to appear nonchalant, but my chest is tightening hard inside me. I don't want anything to happen to her. I made a promise to Peeta. But I can't leave Rue alone, she'll be a sitting duck. Rue hugs Katniss tightly, and the unexpected gesture clearly takes her by surprise. She puts her arms around her and hugs her anyway. "Be safe," she warns, patting her on the head. She looks over at me.

"I don't need a hug, Twelve, thanks," I say, backing up a foot. Katniss pretends to look offended, but a playful smile appears on her lips.

"You be safe too."

...

We light the first fire, but it doesn't immediately attract anyone. We decide to hang around the fire pit for a little while, with Rue snacking on some nearby berries. I go to grab one and pop it in my mouth and she shouts, "No! Not those!" Her urgency makes me drop them on the ground immediately. "Those are nightlock. Poison."

Poison? I look at them, how juicy and dark they are, how sinisterly tempting. Of course they're fucking poison. Nothing good is ever real. "Thanks, Rue," I say, and I tuck about five or six of the berries in my pocket. She raises her eyebrows at me. "Either way this goes, kid, it looks like you're going to win this year."

She doesn't respond, but she understands me. If it's just the three of us, I'm out. A small smile appears on her mouth, fringed with a sadness. "You care about Katniss a lot, huh?"

I look up wistfully into the clear sky, biting my lip. Hopefully the cameras are not on us. They should be on Katniss, trying to infiltrate the Conucopia. "Yeah, I do."

She takes my wrist, twirling Peeta's bracelet around. "Because of Peeta?"

That sounds much better than, 'No because I'm kind of infatuated with this girl I barely know,' so I nod my head in agreement. "Yeah, something like that."

...

After the second fire we light, we hear the footsteps. More like pounding, like a tribal drum beating closer and closer. Rue and I run as fast as we can, with her a few feet ahead of me. I can hear Cato's grunting as he nears us, and the footsteps of someone else. I turn quickly to see Marvel coming at us, spear in his hand. When the explosions go off, Cato suddenly grinds to a halt. "Shit!" he screams. "The horn!" Rue and I keep running and I hear him scream in frustration. "You get them, I'm going back."

Marvel wastes no time in trying to catch up to us. He's fast - like ridiculously fast - and he's closing in on us. But we continue to run. I don't know how long we run, maybe ten or fifteen minutes when we encounter Katniss, disoriented but aware enough to see the danger we are in.

She stands up straighter, pulling an arrow from her quiver and trying to aim at Marvel, who is dodging in between trees as he advances us. When I turn my head around, I see the spear coming toward us. I reach my hand out - I don't know why. Expecting to catch it? I fail. It skims my abdomen as I turn away from it, ripping the skin open from across my ribs, making me hiss in pain and spin away. But I hear the sickening noise as it penetrates little Rue.

Katniss' arrow is immediate and deadly, hitting Marvel square in the throat and he drops his knees. He falls forward, the arrow pushing through his neck and out of the base of his brain. She goes to Rue, laying her down in a soft bed of grass. With a flinch she pulls the spear out, tossing it to the side. I can hear her crying for her, even over the loud hum of my own pain.

The cannon goes off for Marvel, and I manage to stumble over to him, pulling out the bloodied arrow. I relieve him of any supplies he had - virtually none except for another of Katniss' heat reflectors. I lean my weight against a tree, sliding to the ground as I hold my jacket over my wound, trying to stop the bleeding. It's not bleeding hard, but without gauze or some antibiotics or something, it will get infected just by its sheer size.

For now, though ...Rue. All I can do is sit while Katniss sings Rue a song. A beautiful, haunting song that causes my eyes to well with tears. It reminds me of how my mother would sing me to sleep when I'd have nightmares. She'd crawl into my tiny bed with me, wrapping her body around mine and sing a old Seven tune until I calmed down. When she died, I'd try and sing them to myself but I couldn't ever seen to get the melody right. It never sounded the same again.

As Katniss finishes her small memorial for Rue, I push myself to my feet. My stomach is burning hot with pain, and when I peer through the slice in the fabric, I can see it beginning to look a little green. Goddamnit. A parachute flies down and Katniss grasps it with her hands. Rolls. She looks up at the sky, thanking the people of District 11.

She tucks it away in her backpack, now full with both hers and Rue's supplies and looks over at me. Immediately her brow knits in concern. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm peachy," I respond sarcastically, but it falls short because I end up stumbling backward against the tree again, swooning in pain. Katniss walks over to me, checking my body until she sees the crimson stain along my stomach. She reaches for me and I pull away. "Don't worry about it. We don't have time for this. We have to kill them. Kill them all."

"And we will, but you're useless to me dead. Take off your jacket." I stand my ground and Katniss glares at me heatedly. "Take off your jacket," she repeats again in an ominously low tone. I comply, painfully stripping it off and tossing it onto the ground. The enormity of the wound takes us both by surprise. The blood has begun to coagulate on the surface, slowing but not stopping the flow of blood from out of my veins. I can already tell I'm weak from blood loss, but the adrenaline of hatred and revenge are much more powerful than the pain. "We need to get you some gauze."

"Hear that Blight? We could use some help here!" I call into the sky, but no one responds. I laugh lowly. "I'll be fine for now. I just need to get it cleaned up and then we can fucking end these people and finish these Games." I grab my jacket, ax and backpack and we slowly make our way toward the spring. We settle near the cave I had originally slept in, and Katniss uses her knife to slice some fabric from our extra sleeping roll.

She dips it in the water and looks at me expectantly. I raise my eyebrow at her and she gestures for me to take my shirt off. "I'm not a fucking child, Katniss, I can do this myself."

Her eyes express brief frustration, but then flash back to their normal wide concern. "Look, you got me that bow. And you..." Her eyes trail down, staring down at the trickling water cascading over the rocks. Peeta. I don't know what the extent of their relationship was, but by the intense pain in her eyes, it was probably significant. She sniffs, then looks back to me. "Just let me help you." I reach the hem of my shirt to pull it over my head and I wince in pain, muttering expletives. "Can you lift your arms straight up?"

I nod and do so. Katniss' fingers brush against my stomach, and I let my eyes close while my shirt is pulled over my head. They fly open again as I watch Katniss examine the wound. A blush creeps on her skin and I can't help but grin. I'm not even completely indecent; I do have a Capitol-issued cotton bra on. "Really, Twelve? I was stark naked in the training center, and _now _you're going to blush?"

She ignores me and moves her knees so she's straddling my thighs. She's so close, so frustratingly close to me that I can't help how quickened my breathing becomes. Her thigh muscles clench against mine and I can't think of anything else except how they'd look without those clothes on. I'd be ashamed of myself if I wasn't sure I was going to die soon. Gently she uses the fabric to clean the wound, and I squeeze my eyes shut at the contact. "Am I hurting you?"

I shake my head. No, no, that's not why I'm closing my eyes. You're stupid face and lips are too close to mine and if I look at you, I might do something stupid like kiss you. "No."

She finishes cleaning my wound, her eyes focused on the thin, gross line that stretches across my stomach. Her fingers trace below it, and my muscles clench in response, my breath hitching in my throat. The noise makes her grey eyes flick up to mine, and I search them for a reaction. To her credit, she offers none. I'm cursed with an impulsive emotional personality, and I wear my emotions clearly. To hide this I usually just piss people off. But Katniss, she can just turn her emotions off like a light switch. I'm envious of that skill.

I can't tell if it's pity or concern or ...something else entirely when she sees how completely undone I am at her actions. She hands me my shirt and shuffles back so she's sitting in front of me, rather than on top of me. The sun has begun to set and a strong breeze makes us both shiver. Painfully I put my shirt back on, the dried blood sticking to my skin. Katniss splits the bread with me from Eleven, and rolls out the sleeping bag.

"Sleep," she says, motioning toward the bag. "I'll take the first watch. You need to sleep."

I want to object but I'm so exhausted from the wound and all the death that I comply without a word. Katniss shifts around so she's sitting next to me in the dank cave, and she pulls my head on to her shoulder. Her hand strokes my hair softly, and within a few minutes I'm fast asleep.

* * *

The sound of cannons wakes me up and I sit up with a gasp like I've been drowning. I imagined waking up in my bed, the sweet smell of pine trees wafting through the window. My father plucking at a fiddle before the sun was fully awake, his boots on the chair, instead of on the table as my mother would always remind him. He never did it again, even after she died.

But when I look up in the sky and see Rue's face, I come crashing back down to reality. I can suddenly hear Katniss shushing my gasping breaths, telling me it's okay. I can hear the squawk of jabberyjays above us, and the chirp of crickets. I wipe some saliva from my mouth and and get up, wincing in pain. The pain becomes too much and I push my back against the wall, gasping again for air. The bloody line across my stomach stings like a thousand tracker-jacker stings.

"Let me see." Too weak to say no, I lift my shirt and reveal an ugly, throbbing wound across my stomach. Yellow bits of pus dot the dark crimson stain across my skin. I can see the alarm in Katniss' eyes, even though there is complete darkness. "If Prim were here, she'd be able to patch you up. She'd know what plants to use... I don't... I don't know..."

"It's okay," I breathe, placing my hand on the side of her face. It's an intimate gesture, but it's all I can think of doing to calm her down. I tuck her hair behind her ear and manage a smile. "If you wouldn't mind cleaning it. Then you can sleep, I'll take watch." Katniss raises her eyebrow. "I will watch and wake you up if I hear anything. I know I'm useless, you don't have to give me that look and make me _feel _useless."

Katniss cleans the wound as best she can, tearing the sleeping roll of Rue's and wrapping it around my midsection, tying it in the front. "Good as new," I joke, but Katniss doesn't smile. We both know this wound will be mortal if I don't get medicine soon. So far neither of our sponsors have come through for either of us. All we have is each other. One look at Katniss, though, and I know it's all I would ever need.

* * *

"I won't let you go!" I seethe at her, trying not to raise my voice in spite of the circumstances. The announcer told us something 'each of us needs' is in the Cornucopia a few hours earlier. Katniss insists on going, believing it to be medicine for my wound. "It could be a trick, Katniss. A trick to get us all killed sooner."

She shakes her head, pulling her bow around her shoulder and gathering her arrows. "I'm not going to sit here and let you die, Johanna." The finality in her voice takes me by surprise. I had intended to try and protect Katniss from the moment I stepped into the arena. I hadn't anticipated her wanting to protect me. I'm too worried for her to be affected by her concern for me.

"If you go, I go," I tell her, trying to get to my feet. The stab of pain forces me to sit back down embarrassedly. "And what will I do if you die?" The question pours of my mouth before I can stop myself. It's so pained, so obviously laced with desperation, her entire demeanor changes. Surprise flashes in her eyes, followed by confusion, then determination. She kneels down next to me, cupping my chin in her hand.

"If something happens to me, _win_," she says, her intense grey eyes staring into mine. "Get out of this cave and win." Her face only inches from mine, never have I wanted to kiss someone so badly. I can feel the warmth of her breath against my lips, making my head swim like I've drank hard cider. Before I die, I want to know what those lips feel like.

She gets up to leave and I lay back against the wall of the cave and sigh. "That's not what I meant." I hear her footsteps stop, but I can't see her any longer. After a brief moment I hear her steps grow quiet as she goes back to the Cornucopia.

...

Around thirty minutes later, I hear a cannon go off. _No_, I think. That's not what was supposed to happen. No one was supposed to die. I manage to get to my feet, disregarding our camp and heading off slowly toward the Cornucopia with only my ax. As I near the center of the arena, I can hear the fighting. I see the hovercraft, and I can sort of make out the body. It's Thresh.

My initial relief is stemmed when I see Katniss on the ground, Clove pinning her to the grass. I jog painfully toward them from behind, clutching my stomach. The movement has made the blood seep through Katniss' makeshift tourniquet, and I can feel the warm liquid falling down my abdomen. I take out my ax, brandishing it above my shoulder. I fall to my knees, holding in a scream a pain. I drag myself back up, willing my body to go on just a little bit longer.

"Oh no, District Twelve, where's your boyfriend?" I hear the girl taunt. "Oh wait, that's right. We killed him. Just like we killed your little friend, what was her name?" My hand grips my ax tighter as I stumble as quietly as I can behind the two of them. "Rue. Poor little Rue. First your boyfriend, then your little friend. And what about your little puppy dog from Seven?"

_PUPPY DOG? _I think, enraged. I am no one's puppy dog. I try to will myself to go faster, not only for Katniss, but because as I hear another cannon, I know Cato must've taken care of Foxface. _Tying up loose ends before the finale. _

Katniss spits in the girl's face and Clove punches her in a rage. "Aw, did I touch a nerve?" I can _hear _her stupid pout from here. "She doesn't give a shit about you, District Twelve. Everyone knows it's just an act. Nobody cares about you, not anymore."

I finally reach her, and I grab her by the back of her hair, pulling her upward with all my strength. I hear her gasp and I put my ax to her throat. "Wrong." I don't let her respond. I slice her throat so quickly, so hard, her head almost comes off in my hands. I let her body drop to the ground, blood spilling all over myself and Katniss. The cannon booms.

I drop to my knees, dazedly trying to focus on Katniss, who has gotten to her feet and is trying to open the backpack. She's saying something to me, but I can't hear her. I'm too disoriented in pain. I collapse on my back. The glare of the sun becomes too much and I narrow my eyes. Katniss comes into focus, and I can hear her yelling something at me. She pushes my shirt up, and begins rubbing her hands desperately over my wound.

It stings. Bad. But the stinging eventually subsides and the pain begins to ebb away. I can finally hear her words ("Come back to me, come on, Johanna, come back!") and I smile in spite of what I assume is my imminent demise. I did what I was supposed to do. I protected Katniss.

Behind her, I see a large figure. Cato. My eyes widen in fear and before Katniss can realize what's happening, I grasp my ax with both my hands over my head and fling it over both of us.

As she turns around she sees him fly backward on to the grass, dead. My ax sticking out of his skill like he was a tree stump.

The last cannon goes off.

* * *

Katniss helps me to my feet and we look around nervously. Everyone else is dead. Two Victors, same gender. So why is there no announcement? I go over to Cato before they can take his body and pull my ax out, returning it to my belt.

"What else, huh Snow? What else?" I scream at the sky, staring up into the glaring sun. I'm still in intense pain, but I want them to know that I'm angry. I want them to feel how angry I am inside their bones.

And then he tells us. Or, Claudius Templesmith tells us. "The original rules of the Games are now in effect. There will be only one victor of the 74th Hunger Games."

The realization hits me like a pile of lumber. I can see it in Katniss' eyes as well. The horror, the sadness. I reach toward my pocket and she quickly aims her bow at me. I can't help but laugh at the sight. As I laugh, she narrows her eyes at holds her aim at me. When she finally looks at my hands, she sees I have the handful of berries I had pulled earlier.

Her look of confusion deepens. But she lowers her bow, pointing it at our feet. "You win, Twelve. If you don't want to kill me, then I'm just going to do it myself."

"What? No!' She goes to slap the berries out of my hand and I easily dodge her, despite how weak I'm becoming from the blood loss. "Johanna, you can't."

"I can, unless you want to do the honors." I use my free hand to toss my ax at her feet, waiting on her decision. I go to put the berries in my mouth.

"Wait!" she cries. She throws her bow on the grass, shrugs off the quiver and lets the arrows spill out at her feet. She holds out her hand. "If you go, I go." Both of us? Then the Capitol would have no victor. I begin to imagine the uprisings that would occur if they had no victor. What would they do? People in Twelve, and hopefully in Seven, would be very angry. More than that, I think of what this means. Could she possibly feel something toward me?

Not that it matters. We're about to die. But it's a comforting thought to die with.

I nod my head and drop three berries on to her open palm. She examines their weight with a motion of her hand. They look so tempting I'm almost looking forward to tasting them. I'm sure they're sickly sweet, just like everything else the Capitol manufactures. She takes a step toward me so we're only a few inches apart.

As I stare into her grey eyes, I'm overwhelmed with emotion. I'm drowning in it in fact, and I have only one coherent thought. I quickly put my hand around her neck and pull her face to mine, kissing her softly. My dying wish - to feel what those lips feel like. They feel warm and soft. As surprised as she is by my action, she doesn't pull away. Her mouth moves against mine slowly, tenderly, like we've been kissing for years and it's not the last embrace of two doomed near-strangers.

We break apart, my breaths coming out in short puffs. I'm pleased to see she looks flush, too. "Ready?" She nods. We both tilt our heads back when the announcer cuts in again frantically.

"No! Stop! Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present to you the victors of the 74th Hunger Games - Johanna Mason and Katniss Everdeen!"

And then I pass out.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, you guys are the _seriously_ best with your reviews and your follows. If I could send each of you a bar of chocolate or equivalent treat, I would do so in a heartbeat. I'd even take into consideration flavor preferences.**


	4. You either play, or you die

I don't regain consciousness for another two days. I hear voices come in and out, but they all seem to blur together. None sound familiar. The only thing that's constant is a beeping next to my head. Beep. _Don't do anything to her, she's fine. _Beep. _Is she going to wake up soon? _Beep. _She's in a lot of trouble. She'd be better off dying in the arena. _Beep.

* * *

When I can finally walk without any help, I'm whisked off into a dressing area where my prep team descends on me in a flurry of well-wishes and inane chatter. I look at my body, previously covered in scars but now I was completely clean. Flawless, except for the long scar across my ribs. It's lighter, but still apparent. My prep team notices me lightly touching it and Hiss shrugs. "They told us to keep it."

I look at her. "Why?"

She shrugs again. "I didn't ask. Word came from President Snow."

When they turn me to face the mirror, I look much different than when I went in. I don't look like a crumpled piece of paper or a tree. I look like a ...I don't even know. I'm wearing a blood red, bodice-hugging dress that cuts a 'v' shape just below my scar. Chosen, I'm sure, to show the mark from where Marvel had gotten my skin trying to get Rue, Katniss and me. My heels are so spiky and tall, I can barely walk in them. My eyes are darkened with black eyeliner, making my dark hazel eyes look menacingly darker than normal.

"Where's Katniss?" I've been asking that question for hours, ever since I came to, and no one was willing or could answer me. Finally, Blight walks in with a flask in his hand. He looks handsome, sharp in a black suit with one red rose in his pocket.

"She's waiting for you by the stage. Your reunion is going to be live."

"Goody," I reply, turning to face him. "I don't have anything to say."

Blight chuckles and hands me the flask, and without a thought I take a long swig from it. It's swill, but it might help me pluck up the courage to face the crowd ...and Katniss. "I think you have a lot to say to Katniss, Johanna." He steps toward me, giving me a small smile. He takes my hand in between his, in a weird and comforting gesture. His already soft voice lowers to a whisper. "Just be yourself. Don't think about what they want. Just think about you. Understand?"

"They can fuck off, that's what I understand."

"No," he insists, squeezing my hand harder. "It's extremely important that you explain why you did what you did. With the berries."

I look at him, down at him since my heels are so damned high, a real fear in my eyes. "I did it for her."

He smiles. "I know you did."

"And this outfit?"

Blight curls his thin lips into a bemused smirk. "I think they're trying to dress you as a femme fatale, like you seduced Katniss."

I snort. "Seduced her with my sexy pus-filled wound and dirty hair? I must be pretty good." My laughter fades as I look down awkwardly. "And her?"

He shakes his head. "Haymitch has told her what to do, I'm sure."

He doesn't answer the question that I'm really thinking: _Does she even love me at all?_

* * *

When we walk on stage, she looks genuinely excited to see me. She practically jumps into my arms, and I spin her around, pulling her close and smelling the sweet smell she carries with her at all times. Even haggard in the arena, she smelled wonderful. I pull back and look at her. She looks gorgeous - a yellow dress that makes her glow like candlelight, soft make-up that accentuates her grey eyes and tanned skin. Her hair up in a bun, with two small tendrils of hair to frame her face. A quick glance to the audience shows me they're expecting a kiss.

I can see weird advertisements for us above their heads - pictures of us kissing, hearts with our names in it and an arrow (how clever) and an ax in them. People are wearing their hair in braids like Katniss, some of them black with a few red streaks like me. People have fake axes and fake bows and arrows. But I look in her eyes and I can't. I can't kiss her. Not like this.

I have an easy rapport with Caesar, so when I lead Katniss to the couch, I purposely sit closer to him. Katniss tucks her feet in and places her head on my shoulder. I'm momentarily confused, but I wrap my arm around her and pull her closer. It feels natural, sitting with her like this. Even in this unnaturally bright, florescent arena. Why does being near her feel as first nature as breathing?

"Well, Johanna, Katniss, I have to say we were expecting a little more emotion in this reunion. After what we saw in the arena..."

"Our first kiss," I interrupt. I place my hand on Katniss' thigh, and she holds it between her hands. I fight the shiver that goes through me. "But I'm sure you all understand, if I want our next one to be ...slightly more private." I curl my lips in a grin, and I see it plastered on the screens in the audience. I do look like a seductress.

Caesar laughs and nods. "Of course, of course, I think we understand. Now for Miss Everdeen, we were expecting to see she and Peeta in an alliance, after his confession here. But yet _you_ were the one that allied with him, Johanna."

Katniss raises her eyebrow slightly, but I see her focus on the screens as we watch me find Peeta by the river. My eyes go from the screen, which I don't need to watch because I lived it, to Katniss. She watches Peeta and I bond, and when she watches me insist on getting the bow to her, her hand grips mine tightly. To my surprise she brings my hand to her face and kisses my knuckles.

There is a sigh from the crowd and I realize they've been watching us on another screen. They see her kiss my hand and my reaction - god, I look completely whipped. Hopefully Katniss didn't notice. I don't need her to feel badly for me when she realizes how hopeless I am. We watch him die, and Rue. They cut out Katniss' makeshift funeral, but we hear her sing. I smile.

We watch our little ...thing at the Cornucopia with the berries. The crowd goes wild, clapping and howling as they watch us kiss. It looks pretty real to me, but I'm biased, it _was _real to me. Katniss squeezes my hand again, covering it with her own once more. "So tell us, Katniss. We see why Johanna did what she did. She was looking out for you since the second she stepped in that area. She was willing to die so you and Rue could win. She was willing to die again, to see you win alone. Tell us when your feelings changed."

"She's the bravest woman - the bravest person - I've ever known." It's a good answer, a safe answer. She leans over and kisses my cheek, affectionately rubbing her lipstick off of my face.

"I can't disagree with you there, and I don't want to, Johanna would have my head!" The crowd laughs and we both nod, and Caesar claps my thigh good-naturedly. "Johanna, what was your strategy? We saw you in the training center, not making any allies. Not even with Katniss or Peeta."

"I just wanted to protect her. If I could get one of us to make it out alive, then that was my goal."

"And the berries?"

I look nervously to Blight, who nods in encouragement. "I couldn't bear the thought of living without her."

The audience eats that answer up and I see both Blight and Haymitch give long sighs of relief. I don't exactly understand why, but I guess I did okay. Caesar looks over at Katniss, smiling. "We were shocked when we saw you take the berries out of Johanna's hand. What was going through your mind?"

Katniss is silent for a moment, then she looks to me. "All I could think of was ...if she goes, I go." She echoes my words from the cave, and her own from the Cornucopia. I lean over and kiss her temple.

The trumpet blares the anthem and Caesar stands with us, announcing us the winners again. President Snow comes on stage, smelling of blood and roses. I try not to sneer too much as he breaks the traditional crown into two equal tiaras, placing them in our hair and giving us small hugs. A hug that feel like the closing of a coffin.

* * *

The banquet is truly a sight. Snow's mansion is a giant, imposing ivy-walled building that looks straight out of a story book. Inside, musicians play on what looks like literal clouds above our heads as people dance and eat gluttonously at endless tables of food. Katniss holds my hand tightly, clearly unnerved by the entire situation. Sponsors and other prominent Capitol citizens take photos with us, chat with us, and while I find it easy to bullshit with these people, Katniss is uncomfortable.

She lets out a tired exhale as another person leaves our conversation. I smile. "We're almost done," I reassure her, squeezing her hand with mine.

She looks up at me with an appreciative smile. But as she searches my eyes, it fades. "Then we go back home. You go to Seven, and I go to Twelve."

"That's the plan," I reply, taking a plump grape from the feast in front of us and popping it in my mouth. "Until the Victory Tour."

Katniss nods wordlessly. An insect camera swoops in front of us. Without warning she plucks a chocolate-covered strawberry from the dessert table and puts it to my mouth. I try to not look surprised. Instead I swirl my tongue around the coating, letting the taste of the berry glide over my taste buds. I watch Katniss' eyes move from my eyes to my lips, to my tongue that's darting out to taste the treat. I watch her cheeks color faintly. I want to make her redden more. I let my tongue glide across the top of her fingers still holding the other half of the strawberry. I see her shudder and I grin with the berry between my teeth. Then I take a small bite from it, giving her a wink. Her cheeks redden further. I curl my finger, beckoning her toward me. Her hand slips around the nape of my neck and she takes the other half of the dessert, her lips brushing against mine.

Slowly she chews, ours lips brushing and her hand still wrapped around the back of my neck. But her eyes are open, staring into mine intently. I don't know what she's searching for. She swallows the food, and I watch her throat bob. Then she kisses me, softly, so softly it's like putting your lips on a flower. I have initiated, or at least controlled, every kiss we've had. But this time I don't. I let her control the tempo, the intensity. Her lips move against mine tentatively, with a bit of clumsy inexperience. Then she slides her tongues along my lip and I let out a small whimper.

Her eyes flicker open and look into mine, and I feel her lips smile against my own. She deepens the kiss, sliding her tongue into my mouth and gently caressing mine with her own. I feel her push her body against mine, her other hand moving to hold my throat. I don't know what to do with my hands, so I place them on her waist, putting gentle pressure on her hips. She tastes like strawberries and chocolate and the tangy hint of wine. I pull away, only because my lungs have given out and I can't breathe anymore.

It's a crime how devastatingly gorgeous she looks after being kissed.

"You're a natural, Twelve," I say, looking down at my wine glass that's in my free hand. I swirl the liquid around in the crystal. She's doing all of this so easily, so well, that part of me is beginning to believe that it might be real.

...

At our personal interview, I'm again dressed like a black widow spider, and Katniss like a young girl. We're the same age - I might be a year older - but we look at least five years apart. But she still looks beautiful. We sit on the couch again, with Katniss curled into me. We go over how we met - I describe to them Katniss' help in the archery range. We watch Katniss fight for me at the Cornucopia, see her watch me as I sleep, comfort me when I wake up disoriented. Caesar and I joke around, making jokes like old pals. Then finally, he drops the last question on us.

"Well I'll have to end with what I think everyone wants to know. For both of you. When did you know what it was love?"

A dreadfully long silence falls in between us. Every action Katniss has done since I got her the bow has seemed born from love. Or at least, a deep affection or trust. We haven't actually been able to talk, so I don't know how she's feeling about me. I know that she kisses like she loves me. I dream about it. "The moment she showed up with the bow, I knew."

The crowd we can hear over the speakers eats up her answer, clapping and hooting and hollering. Caesar looks to me. "And you?"

I don't answer immediately. I'm so thrown by her answer (_she doesn't love you, she couldn't even say it_) that I'm suddenly nervous. I look at Katniss and it settles my nerves a little. Funny how someone can set your nerves on fire and simultaneously calm them. Love is weird. "I can't pinpoint an exact moment. It felt inevitable. Like somehow, her name has been etched inside me all this time like a glyph in a cave. And the Games, the Capitol, wiped a torch across and lit it for me. I owe them a great debt for that." I look from Caesar to Blight, who gives me another nod, then back to Katniss. Her eyes are a little glossy, like she might cry. I lopsided smile forms on my lips. "I finally could see who it was that I am ...meant to love."

I know that I've done right when the crowd loses their minds over my answer. A woman literally faints. Katniss moves her hands to cup the sides of my face, and my damned breathing hastens against my better judgement. She pulls me in to kiss her, and I can hear the roar of the crowd as our lips meet. Somehow, though, I can almost tune them out. I can hear her breath hitch as I slide my tongue across her bottom lip. The small gasp that comes from her mouth allows me to slide my tongue against hers, truly tasting her for the first time. No berries, no chocolate, just the sweet taste of Katniss' mouth.

Snow could have shot me dead right then and I would have died as close to heaven as I'll ever get. Her kiss feels ...real, loving. As we pull away and I see her swollen lips, hooded grey eyes and heaving chest, I almost faint myself. It's so provocative I want to devour her. Instead I take her hands in mine and we stand with Caesar. He thanks us for the interview, congratulating us on our win and soon we are whisked away back on to the train home.

* * *

With our unprecedented win, the train ride back is bizarre. We take the same train even though we're going home to separate districts. Our prep teams are no longer with us, just our Mentors and our escorts. Effie and Hiss are insufferable, chattering loudly almost every damn minute we are riding along. Seven is much closer to the Capitol than Twelve, so we are going there first.

I've avoided Katniss since we left the interview. But when we're on the train, our rooms are next to each other. After I wash my face, running my fingers through my teased-up hair to slick it back down, I dress back into my normal clothes from Seven - a pair of jeans and a cotton black t shirt. I sit on a chair next to the wall, leaning my damp hair against the wood paneling. I hear voices coming from the wall and I recognize them immediately: Haymitch and Katniss.

"You never get off this train!" Haymitch shouts, and I hear his boots clamor on the floor, pacing back and forth. "You don't get to go home and hunt in your woods and hang out with your 'cousin' and your family. You will have these next few months, yes, while Johanna is in Seven. But when the Tour begins? You will need to act as lovers again."

"I can't keep doing this. I don't want to do this to her."

"It's too late for that, sweetheart. You should have thought of that before you took those berries from her. You should have just let her die!" I hear a slap, and then Haymitch's low chuckle.

"I couldn't let her die! She ...she risked her life to save me. To save Peeta, to save Rue."

"I know why you did it, Katniss. You wanted to survive. You wanted to save her, too. I'm just telling you that this is not just a debt you settle after a bad hand. This is your life now. _This. _It's not called the Games for nothing. You either play, or you die."

...

I don't eat dinner with them, instead choosing to take my meal from an Avox in my room. I like the Avoxes. I like the fact that they did something, stood for something, that pissed the Capitol off. I wonder if they resent me because I did something that pissed the Capitol off, but my tongue is in tact. I don't think she does, but I do think about it. The girl who guards my room - a beautiful black-haired girl with chocolate-colored skin - is the same from when I got on this train a few weeks ago. Somehow we manage to almost communicate. I know she isn't supposed to "say" anything, but we kind of communicate through hand motions. She's so good at conveying her thoughts and explaining her actions with her expressive brown eyes and deliberate hand movements, I feel like I can read her mind.

I weep from the moment she delivers my food, to when she guides me into the shower and practically bathes me, to the moment she dresses me and tucks me into bed. It's almost like being a child with a nanny - someone not blood related, but there's a trust there. Seeing her made me lose the tight control I had over my emotions when I left the arena. Grief at losing Peeta and Rue, guilt at killing so many innocent people, and the unique gripping pain of unrequited affection.

"Thank you," I say to her, and she smiles slightly and nods. "I don't know why I can't stop crying. It's stupid. I'd be more embarrassed but I'm sure I'm not the first idiot to cry in their room after the Games, right?"

She shakes her head. She wipes a few tears from my cheek, then points to Katniss' room. Then she places her finger on my chest, over my heart. I nod.

_You love her._

She points to Katniss' room, then to my tear-streaked face. "She's crying?" The Avox nods. "You heard her?" She nods again. I scoff. "Well it's not for me."

She raises her eyebrow. _Are you sure? _

"Yes I'm sure."

_I heard her say your name._

I raise my eyebrow. "When?"

_Now. She's not sleeping. She's crying. For you._

"Too bad." Her eyebrow raises again I feel myself getting angry at her. "She doesn't _love _me, do you understand? Do you have any idea what that feels like? It feels like a chainsaw inside my chest. It was all just a game to her." I roll over so my back is facing the Avox, whose weight I feel leave the bed. "Good night."

...

The second time that night when I wake up screaming, someone is holding me. My lungs quickly suck in desperate breaths, my hands clutching the sheets. Her hands are on my face, forcing me to look at her in the darkness. The whizzing lights of the train tunnel illuminate her sporadically. Katniss. "Hey, shh, I'm here. Everything's okay."

I take her hands and throw them off of me. "What are you doing in here?" I whisper, trying to ignore the fact that a lightly dressed and mussed Katniss is in _my _bed with me.

Hurt reflects back to me from her light eyes. "You were screaming. I couldn't sleep, so I thought maybe if I came in here I could help." She looks down at the comforter. "I'm having nightmares too. Every night since I was reaped. Except...except when you were there."

I grit my teeth, forcing down the bubble of sympathy that comes up in my chest. Instead I turn my countenance cold. "Glad I could be your teddy bear, Twelve. But if you haven't noticed, we're not _in _the arena anymore. I can handle my nightmares by myself."

My heart hurts so badly I want to die. The way she looks at me, with such undisguised surprise and anguish, makes me want to slit my wrists. But what does she expect from me, really? I'm sure she thinks my affection was an act, too. And if she doesn't, well then she's an even bigger asshole than I give her credit for.

"I'm sorry," she mumbles, moving out of my bed and standing up beside it.

"You don't have to pretend to care about me when the cameras aren't around, okay?" I rub my face, sitting upright in my bed. "I know you were doing what you had to do to survive. I'm not angry at you for that. I just don't like to feel like someone's pulling the wool over my eyes."

Katniss looks down at me, crossing her arms over her chest. "You think that's what I'm doing? Tricking you?"

"No, I think you're still playing the game. But the game is only played when we have cameras on us. When those cameras are off, you don't need to act like we are anything but two almost-friends."

"I thought we were friends," she murmurs, averting her gaze to the ground.

Great now I've hurt her fucking feelings. Good going, Mason. But I have to push her away, otherwise ...I'll let myself fall further in love with her and never recover because she doesn't reciprocate. "Allies," I correct. I let my gaze harden, as cold as I can make it. "_You either play, or you die_."

Her eyes grow wide, mouth open with unsaid words. Her jaw works, but no sound comes. I turn over, pulling my blanket over my shoulders. I hear her leave without a word, and when I hear the soft click of her door, I sob.

* * *

**A/N: Your comments are ego-inflating and I'm rapidly becoming insufferable to be around. But seriously, thank you all, lords and ladies. You're amazing. Sorry about the angst, but ...you didn't think it'd be that easy, did you? I mean, come on. It's only chapter four. ;)**


	5. One problem, one solution

When I wake up from a light sleep, I have a different Avox in my room. A tall, blonde-haired man who doesn't know how to communicate and didn't want to. In a rage I dress quickly and storm out into the breakfast table, where my escort and Effie are sitting together, chatting quietly.

"Where is my Avox?" I ask, standing between her and the escort. I don't know where Haymitch or Katniss are, but I imagine they are still asleep. The sun has barely peeked over the horizon yet. I couldn't sleep last night anyway, as evidenced by the bags under my eyes that are staring down at the pink-haired escort.

"She's going back to the Capitol," Effie explains curtly, not looking up from her breakfast. I swipe her bowl away from her and on to the floor. I slam my palm down, forcing her to look at me. "What is all this about?! Are you insane?!"

"Why is she going back?" I ask through clenched teeth.

Effie looks to my escort for support, but she was cowering behind me. Effie raises her blue eyes to mine, wide with alarm. "I don't know. We received a message from President Snow that she was to be brought back to the Capitol immediately after we disembark from Twelve. And removed from your service at once."

I narrow my eyes. "_Did_ he now?" I ask dangerously. "Then you can tell him that I am ...purchasing her for myself." I find myself caught on that word - it seems so harsh and inhuman. "He can name his price. But she is getting off that train in Seven. She is not a prisoner of his any longer. She is _mine_. If he wants her, he can come to my house himself and pry her from my fucking hands. Am I understood?"

Effie's throat bobs, nodding her head rapidly. "I don't exactly get an audience with President Snow, but I-I will make sure he gets word."

"Good." I look over to another Avox, who is staring at the floor, trying not to look in our direction. "Get her some more breakfast," I order to him, storming back into my room and slamming the door.

...

When we reach Seven Katniss gives me a searing, desperate kiss on the steps of the vestibule, to wild cheers from the people in my district. We hadn't spoken since the night before and I wasn't about to start now. We say nothing; I just hold her face between my hands, staring into her grey eyes as long as I can before the train began departing.

I turn to face the crowd, answering questions from eager residents - but mostly I bounce on my feet to try and find my father. I do - I see his stark black hair and piercing blue eyes farther back in the crowd. Without a word I shove my way through everyone and launch myself into his arms. Even his smell - firewood and tobacco - make my eyes flood with tears. I never realized how much I missed home.

"I'm proud of you, Josie," he whispers in my ear, using the nickname he called me when I was very little. The one my mother always called me. He hadn't called me that since she died. I cry harder.

* * *

I step out of my bath, leisurely toweling off and dressing myself. I look in the mirror - for the first time in weeks, I look like myself. I don't like it. I don't feel like this girl anymore. I don't feel like the motherless troublemaker daughter of a lumberjack anymore. I fumble in the mirror cabinet and find a plethora of make-up there. The house is stocked with everything - food, clothes, make-up, furniture, appliances - things I'll never use, but is comforting to have.

After I finish applying my make-up, I see my Avox in the mirror. I give her a smile, looking at her through my charcoal-lined eyes. "Do you like your room?"

She nods. I set her room up in the one next to mine, attached by a door. She insists on tending to me, even though I told her it wasn't necessary. Something about Avoxes and servitude - you'd think they were born slaves instead of rebels. The indoctrination must be tough. I exit the bathroom and go into my room, where I can see she's turned by bed over.

I sit on my bed, curling my legs beneath me. She lights the three candles next to my bed and goes to leave. "Wait!" I call, and she turns obediently. "Sit down, I'd like to talk to you."

Without a word (obviously) she sits on my bed, facing me. From my dresser I withdraw a small notepad and hand it to her. "You are not being watched anymore. You are not being followed. You are safe here. Since you're living under my roof, I'd like to know about you."

She nods, biting her lip nervously. I've never seen her express an emotion so clearly, it makes me smile. "What's your name?"

_Violet. _She writes it on the notepad, in a flowery handwriting befitting of her name.

"That's pretty." She smiles at me. "What District are you from?"

_Eleven. _I nod solemnly. "Did you know Rue?" She shakes her head no. "Thresh?" She nods. "I'm sorry."

_He was not my family. I knew his family. Eleven is a big district. But we were neighbors. _

"Why did they make you an Avox?" I want to get the most obvious question out of the way.

She stiffens, but she scribbles in the notebook anyway, her dark eyes focused intently on the paper.

_I spoke against the Capitol. My sister Yari won the Games 10 years ago. They turned her into a slave to the Capitol. To be bought and sold by the men and women there. I went there to fetch her. I was caught._

"I don't understand. They just ..bought her? How is that possible?" She shrugs. "Is this what they do to victors? All of them?" She shakes her head no.

_Yari and Finnick Odair. That's all. _

I remember hearing of Finnick Odair when he won his Games. A handsome man from Four who won his Games through violence and sponsor generosity. "Was it because he owed them for winning? Did Yari get a lot of sponsors?"

_No. She won because she was fierce. Pres. Snow told her he would kill me and our mother and father if she didn't comply. Finnick loves a woman named Annie. _Annie Cresta, I remember her winning just a few years prior to mine. She went crazy, as far as I could tell. _He blackmailed them._

I immediately think of Katniss. Snow has so many people to hold above her head: Mrs. Everdeen, Prim, Gale, even Haymitch. Katniss' love casts a wide net. Violet's psychic connection flares up because she places her hand on me gently. _They won't hurt her. She is too famous now. Her family was all over the televisions._

It makes sense. Katniss is too famous for that. I'm not untouchable though. And I'm the one that used the berries. They'll come for me. I have no one I care about except for my father. And Violet, but they'd just either take her back or slit her throat. I care for her, clearly since I risked my life to take her with me, but my father's life is priority.

What am I to do if I'm asked the same?

Violet is shaking her head again when my gaze finally falls back on her. _Your love with Katniss unites the districts. I've seen it. Riots. _My eyebrows raise almost to my hairline. Riots? Because of us? _You and Katniss gave them hope. Hope is a dangerous thing. More dangerous than fear._

* * *

When Snow calls for me a few weeks later, I panic. I rush downstairs to find my father, but he's nowhere to be found. Violet comes down after me, eyes wide. "Where's my father?" I ask, nearly screaming at her.

She shakes her head. She makes a few motions with her hands, and I have to focus to translate. _Left early. Didn't say anything._

I grab my backpack and motion for her to come with me. If this is Snow's official call, I can't leave her here to be slaughtered while I'm gone. We board the next train, sitting on a bench near the window. As the train silently leaves the station, I look over at Violet. In the past few months I have come to rely on her for company, for comfort, for just about everything. At night when I cry and Katniss' name spills from my lips, it it she who rubs my back and tucks me back in. She makes sure I don't sleep all day, that I get out of the house and do something every day. I've learned she's a wonderful seamstress, and she trades scarves and clothes she makes in the black market for spices and things. She even got my father a new fiddle, even though I could have easily bought one.

I've explained to her what happened with Katniss - how heartbroken I am that she doesn't love me. How I don't know how I'm going to go on pretending with her, when just thinking of her clenches my heart. She offers advice, sometimes, but mostly she just listens to me with an intent tranquility that eases my pain somewhat. She's probably around twice my age, wise and graceful. Even now, as we hurriedly get to the Capitol where we both could die, she is calm.

"Do you want to go back to Eleven?"

She looks at me, surprised. _Why? _

"To be with your family. I feel like I've been selfish. If you want, I can have them stop in Eleven. You can go home." I hope that my despair at possibly losing her isn't obvious. She's been my anchor since I won my Games.. since I lost Katniss.

_I owe you my life. _

I laugh. "You owe me nothing. I don't own you. You're my friend." She smiles at me, gripping her hand with mine. "If you want to go home, say the word." Her chest begins jumping, her smile spreading into a wide grin. I realize that this is her way of laughing at me. "Okay, sign the word. Write the word. Don't make fun of me, you know what I meant."

She shakes her head, her curly brown locks bouncing from side to side. _I go with you._

I look out the window, watching the edges of Seven disappear as we enter into an unlit tunnel. "That could be a death sentence."

* * *

President Snow's office is homier than I imagined. It's smaller, cozier, with a small fire amidst volumes of books on white shelves. Everything is white - the desk, the chairs, the bookshelves. It exudes a sterility, a faux sense of cleanliness that makes me shudder. Snow himself is dressed in a grey three-piece suit, with one white rose in his pocket.

When he turns on his chair, he looks from me to Violet. "I received your message, Miss Mason. I won't be asking anything of you in exchange for the traitor. I know you have grown fond of Avoxes."

"Her name is Violet," I reply coldly, crossing my arms over my chest.

Snow smirks. "I'm well aware of her name. Sit down, Miss Mason, please." The way he looks at her - a familiarity like that of a sniper and a moving target - makes me want to punch his throat.

I sit down in my seat, looking from Violet - who stands with a tranquility that is hiding the rage I'm sure she feels at seeing the man responsible for her disability, and her sister's servitude - to Snow. He always looks so placid - like a circle of quicksand hidden beneath some brush.

"I think you will agree to make this entire situation easier by agreeing not to lie to each other," he begins, clasping his hands on the desk. I give him a nod. "Good. My advisors believed you would be difficult to speak with, but I told them someone who goes through such lengths to preserve her life isn't going to throw it away." He purses his thin lips, his crystal blue eyes staring into mine. "I admire your bravery, Miss Mason."

"Thank you."

His lips quirk in a small smile. "I have a problem, Miss Mason. A problem that began when you pulled those berries from the arena." My eyes must flash guilt because he continues to smile at me. "I know you were doing what you thought you had to in order to survive. There was no written rule against it. And I do believe that you feel for Miss Everdeen what you claim to feel."

Unfortunately I can't mask the sadness that flashes in my eyes at the mention of her name. Snow notices. "When did you figure out the degree of her indifference?"

I grip the sides of my chair, my rage boiling in my veins. "What do you want?" I spit, my teeth clenched.

Snow chuckles softly, then pulls out a small silver tube. He places it on the desk and hits a button. A video plays on the hologram - Katniss being kissed by some boy. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that must be the 'friend' Gale that Peeta was so jealous of. I have to bite my lip and hold my hands to the chair to not yell or smack the device off his desk.

"The people of the Capitol were quite convinced of your act as lovers. The other districts, not so much."

A sinking feeling happens in my stomach. "The other districts?"

"You are not aware of the mood in other districts, but they saw your performance in the arena as an act of defiance. Or at least, that's how they perceived Miss Everdeen. If a small girl from District Twelve can start an uprising, why can't they?"

"There have been uprisings?" I can't help the intonation of hope that is in my voice.

"Not yet. But there will be, if you do not stop it."

Snow leaves the device on the desk, replaying the same video over and over again of Katniss kissing Gale in the woods. I can't take my eyes off of it. "What do you want me to do?"

"You? Nearly nothing. You are not the real problem. Katniss is the problem. But since you care for her, I thought you ought to know. Perhaps you can speak to her. I already have."

I raise my eyebrow. "You spoke with Katniss?"

He nods. "After I watched this little video you're seeing, I thought it would be wise to tell her that running off every Sunday into the woods with this boy was probably not in her, or Panem's best interests."

Running off every Sunday? Alone in the woods with her familiar hunting partner? Someone Peeta had thought was so inevitable for Katniss he didn't think she stood a chance. I pick up the device showing the kiss and toss it toward the window, where the tube shatters with a loud noise. The windows don't break, however, I notice. Probably re-enforced so no one could attempt on his life. How fucking quaint. I feel Violet place her warm hand on my shoulder.

A Peacekeeper comes in but Snow waves him away. "Not necessary." He looks to me, a bemused smile on his lips. "I took you for a fighter, Miss Mason. Was I wrong?"

"What?" I ask, my eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"I watched you in the arena. I watched you train. You came into these Games a fighter. Was that all just for the girl?"

"No." My voice is small and doesn't even sound like me. I hate it. I hate that he can make me feel this way.

He makes a small noise in the back of his throat. "Then why are you letting her cavort with this boy? We both want the same thing, Miss Mason. Peace. And we can achieve that using the same means. If you make her love you, you can stop these riots. Prevent the people of our country from launching a war they are not prepared to fight. Do you know how many people will die? The girl, her family, her little poacher friend, they will be but a few of thousands upon thousands who will die if they try to upset the system."

I want them to rebel. I want Snow to choke on his own blood and watch his city burn. I want Katniss to love me. "I can't make her love me. You can't make someone feel something they simply do not feel."

"Who says she doesn't? Have you asked her?"

I realize that Snow is giving me love advice and it makes me want to puke. He is saying the same things Violet had written to me. Truth be told, I hadn't given her a chance to explain herself. I had just assumed she didn't care for me, that she was just trying to protect her family. It had hurt so much to hear her and Haymitch talk, that I didn't want to open myself up again to that pain. But maybe she deserved to explain herself.

He takes my silence as negation and smirks. "The Tour begins in just a few weeks. I think you should pay your lover a visit. Remind her of the love you share." The way his eyes harden and his composure stiffens, I know that's not what he means. He means get her on board, or everyone dies. "If we can both get what we want, why not join forces to do so? One goal, one solution. Simple as that."

"What about what she wants?"

He barely hides his glare. "She should have given that more thought before she took your berries. She should have let you kill yourself and just won the Games." The cold, calculated tone of his voice sends a chill down my spine. "But she, like the Gamemaker who didn't just blast you to bits, has an unfortunate sentimental streak. Don't let what happened to Seneca Crane happen to Miss Everdeen."

The direct threat on her life makes my entire body tense. He levels his gaze at me, softening slightly. "You will be on this Tour as lovers. Convince the districts that you both cannot live without the other. Convince me of what I already know to be false. Tell me the sky is red when I know it's blue."

"And if we can't?" I ask, rising from my chair.

He looks at me, unimpressed. "Do you love her?" My silence speaks volumes. Everything I've done for the past few weeks, few months, has been because I love her. Hopelessly, helplessly. "Then you will not fail."

* * *

White, puffy snow covers the ground when I arrive in Seven, just a week before the Tour. We are going to start in Twelve and end in Seven, then off to the Capitol for the large banquet. Blight and I take the trip, leaving Violet home with my father. I didn't want her any more involved in my web of sadness than she already was, and she had begun bonding with my father anyway. I think he liked the company, even though he'd never say it.

Our reunion was set to be live, again, with teasers being televised all week. They played it as if Katniss' mother was protective of her, and we were both "so busy" with our new pet projects we hadn't seen each other. Caesar was a pro, so I had no worries that they believed our distance was mutually decided upon and painful, rather than just plain painful.

We arrive a few days after Katniss' friend Gale had gotten a pretty severe whipping for hunting in the woods. New Head Peacekeepers were popping up all over Panem, probably to crack down on the "riots" Snow had told me about. When we get to Katniss' house, Prim is at the door to greet us.

"Hi Johanna!" she greets with a warm smile, inviting me in. The whole country loves Prim, and for good reason. She exudes innocence, cleverness, and a purity that the people hope means Panem is not lost. In her eyes, you can see a brighter future for Panem. No wonder Katniss was so eager to die for her.

"Hi Prim," I respond. Blight walks in behind us and I nod to him. "Prim, this is Blight. Blight, this is Katniss' little sister Primrose."

He ducks down and kisses her hand, and the blonde girl's cheeks are inflamed. "So you're the famous Primrose Everdeen, hm? Everyone all over Panem can't stop talking about you. You're even prettier than they say."

I roll my eyes at Blight's attempt at charm and continue into the house. I see Mrs. Everdeen in the kitchen, washing a few bloody rags in the sink. She starts a little at my presence, but gives me a tight smile. "Hi Johanna."

"Hi Mrs. Everdeen. It's nice to meet you." I don't know where the pleasantries come from, or the complete look of subordination I'm sure I have on my features, but I'm all of a sudden intimidated. _Hey, Mrs. Everdeen, I kissed your daughter and the Capitol thinks we're lovers. _

"Where's Katniss?" I ask, as innocuously as possible.

Her blue eyes flicker toward the stairs, then back to me. "Sit down, please, Johanna."

Confused, but obedient, I sit down at the kitchen table. It smells bizarrely sterile - like alcohol and lemons. When I see the small spot of blood on the corner, I understand that this must have been where Gale convalesced. And he was probably upstairs with Katniss.

Mrs. Everdeen sits down next to me, placing her worn hands in her lap. I knew Katniss' mother to be a healer - a skill her sister Prim had. The various glass vials and jars on the counter seemed to prove that to be true. Her tired eyes expressed the pain of suffering - her own and others. I wondered if Mr. Everdeen had Katniss' intense grey eyes.

"Johanna, we had a visit a few weeks ago." She chooses her words carefully, like she was concocting one of her healing balms, and looks to me. I nod in understanding. "Katniss believes she's convinced me it was benign, but I know better. I like to think I'm a bit wiser than my sixteen-year-old daughter."

I let out a soft chuckle. "She is pretty wise. For a sixteen-year-old daughter."

"As far as I've seen, so are you." I'm taken aback by the compliment and Mrs. Everdeen smiles. "Thank you, for protecting my daughter. I have not been able to do that in the sixteen years since she came out of my womb," she replied ruefully. I opened my mouth to say something - I don't know what - but she stopped me. "It's true, unfortunately. There are a lot of unfortunate truths in life, and I bear mine."

I purse my lips. A giggle from the other room makes me turn my head, as I watch Blight perform a magic trick for Prim. I look back to Mrs. Everdeen, with a small smile on her lips. "If a mother's only reflection of her worth is her children, you're in good shape, Mrs. Everdeen."

"That's very kind of you, Johanna." I nod. She cants her head to the side. "Do you love my daughter?"

My mouth is agape as I hear the question. Snow asked me, and I couldn't answer. But Mrs. Everdeen has more honor than Snow, more bravery and I respect her. She deserves an answer. "Yes," I say softly. "But she doesn't -"

"Then I need you to continue protecting her," she interrupts.

I shake my head in bewilderment. "What? I mean, yes, always, but -"

She takes my hand in hers, holding it tightly. "Johanna, is your mother alive?" My eyes avert to the table, suddenly finding the intricate woodwork extremely interesting. The blonde-haired woman lets out a small sigh and tucks a rogue strand of my hair behind my ear. "A mother has certain instincts about her children." She looks passed me, to Prim, who is still watching Blight produce coins from behind her ear with giddy delight. "She knows when her daughter is in love. Sometimes, it's easier to tell..." Prim giggles loudly again and I smile. She takes my chin and gently makes me look toward her. "And sometimes it's not."

I don't know what's she's getting at. I dig my nail into the wood, flicking away the small spot of blood that was unclean. "How's Gale?"

Her flash of surprise at my question is quickly covered with a knowing smile. "When Katniss was a little girl, she was always very guarded. Even before her father..." she winces painfully. "After he died, she shut off completely. She would smile at Prim, entertain her with games, and go to school like every normal girl. But at night, I would hear her cry for her father. At night, I would hold her when I could." I see her throat move as she tries to fight back her own tears. "She came back from the Games, she smiled at Prim, entertained her, and went hunting with Gale every Sunday like normal. Every day he was on this table, she cried for him." I clench my jaw reflexively. "But at night, when she cries and I hold her, she cries for _you_."

* * *

**A/N: You guys love me? I love _you. _I adore each and every one of you for your kind words! Thanks for the continued reviews and the new follows, it helps me justify sitting here writing this rather than studying for finals... Admittedly this chapter goes kind of slow. But I promise we will pick up soon! There will be more Joniss ahead. :)**


	6. A beautiful lie

Blight and I stay in an abandoned victor's home - I say abandoned but I'm sure it was never lived in. Twelve has only had two victors in the last thirty years. We light the hearth in the room, settling on the couch. We kick off our boots and I stretch languidly, letting the flame's heat wash over my skin. I didn't get to see Katniss; I was too shaken from Mrs. Everdeen's talk to even stay longer than a few minutes. Instead I tore Blight from his new admirer and forced him to leave with me.

She said she cried for me at night. For me. But if she knew that Snow had come to threaten her, she might have told me that to think Katniss was on board. As I gaze into the flames I try to conjure up an image of Katniss. The 'girl on fire' Caesar had described her. I remember how her dress sparkled and burned on the stage. I remember how entranced I was when I saw her. I remember the feel of her body against mine in the training center, in the sleeping bag in the tree, near the buffet table at the party. How sweet her lips were in the arena, how wonderful they felt again on stage and at the train station.

How if I lived to be one thousand years old, I would never find anyone to love like I love her. I would never look.

Maybe if I love her enough, I can love enough for the both of us.

* * *

I keep that in mind when Hiss and the prep team come bursting in the door to dress and pretty me up for the cameras. ("Johanna, you look like you haven't slept in weeks!") My escort is there, happily chatting with Blight while they prepare me for my reunion with Katniss. Nobody has to prep him - he's been doing this a while and he always looks effortlessly handsome. Meanwhile, I look like a pile of hair in a drain.

After a few hours of stripping and painting and dressing I finally look what Hiss and her team think is presentable. I don't look like a seductress anymore - I look like me. Faint crimson lipstick, dark eyeliner with wings, and a form-fitting emerald colored top and black pants and a fur coat that more reflects my district than my supposed seduction skills. Blight's crisp black suit has a green-colored rose in the pocket to complement his emerald green tie.

"Hey, you don't look half bad, Blight," I rib, straightening his tie.

He smiles. "You look lovely. Try not to look so sad."

I chuckle, smacking him gently on his jaw. "Getting my heart broken in public isn't cause enough to be sad?"

Blight takes my hands in his, giving them a quick squeeze. "She's not going to break your heart, Johanna."

I step away from him as my escort pulls open the front door, allowing in the chilly breeze of Twelve's winter. I look back at him ruefully. "The sad part isn't that she's going to break my heart. The sad part is I'm going to let her."

I finally see Katniss through the flurry of snow as I step outside. She's wearing a brown fur coat and brown pants, looking like she was going on some Capitol hunting trip. She begins running toward me, I laugh and open my arms. Just before she gets to me, she slips. I catch her by the elbows and for a moment we are steady, but she pulls me down with her momentum (and some force) until I land on top of her. _Oh god_. She grabs me by the lapels of my coat and presses our lips together so fervently, I almost can't feel the snow on the ground I get so warm.

The kiss is short, as I can hear Mrs. Everdeen's throat clearing behind me. But as I pull away her grey eyes search me, a small smile on her lips. "I missed you," she says in a whisper. I don't know why she's not louder, so the cameras can pick it up, but she isn't. As if it's a secret that she missed me while I was home.

I get to my feet, offering her my hand and helping her up. She snuggles into my side, laying her head on my shoulder. There's a big to-do of saying good-bye to everyone from Twelve and then we are all on the train going toward the districts. All I can think of, feel, smell, is Katniss and how tightly she's holding me as we get on the train.

She doesn't let me go. We get on the train, give our coats to the Avoxes - Violet falls right back into her role despite my objection - and Katniss entwines our fingers and leads us to the dinner table. I see her eat with her left hand, simply so she can hold my left hand with her right. I don't know what to attribute her clinginess to, but I don't question it.

...

We separate to go to bed. I take the longest, coldest shower I can to try and scrub off all the warmth Katniss' presence as given me. I'm shivering as I pull on my pajamas, running my fingers through my damp hair to comb it down. There is still the faint mark of eyeliner on my eyes, but I keep it. Appraising myself in the mirror with a nod, I walk out into my bedroom and see my candles lit beside my bed and Katniss sitting on my bedsheets, fidgeting nervously.

I cross my arms over my chest, huffing out a breath. "You know, I get the thing in the snow with the romantic fall. I get the hand-holding during dinner. But maybe I'm just stupid, but I don't get why you're sitting on my bed at midnight when I need to go to sleep."

It's harsh, I realize, but my heart hurts too much to keep this up at all times. In front of cameras, of course, even in front of the prep teams, but not alone. At this point she has to know how I feel about her, and doing this to me is beyond cruel. "I think that we need to talk."

I bristle. "About what, princess, the weather?" I taunt, coming closer to the bed. Instead of recoiling Katniss stands, facing me. I admire her bravery. I've always admired it. The thing with Katniss is, no matter what the situation is between us, she will always have the upper hand. Unfortunately for me, I've let her hold my heart even though she has no idea she has it. Like an old man looking for his glasses when they're atop his head - if she would ever want it, it's right there.

So even as I'm clearly hurting her feelings, I have to hold back the urge to kiss her. "Why are you pushing me away?" she asks in a pained whisper. She looks away from my eyes, down to the plush carpet. "This is not easy for me either, Johanna."

I make a noise in the back of my throat and look down at her, wide-eyed. "Oh I'm awfully sorry that pretending to love me is such a terrible burden for the savior of Panem to bear."

Katniss makes a loud grunt of frustration and walks around me, throwing her hands in the air dramatically. "You are so... You're so..." she stutters, shaking her head at the ground.

"So what, Katniss?" I step forward to her menacingly. "Say it," I hiss, glaring at her. "Go on."

She says nothing. She slowly drags her eyes from the floor, up the length of my body until she settles on my eyes. Her hands grip the material of my shirt above my chest and she shoves me backward until I hit the wall with a soft thud. Her eyes criss-cross over me as she looks at my face. I know my jaw is slack with shock, my chest heaving with a shot of adrenaline. She tilts her head up, her lips so achingly close to mine that they tingle at her nearness.

She moves slightly, her body now pressed fully against mine and my breath hitches in my throat embarrassingly. Her eyes never waver from mine as her lips dangle in front of me, her breath washing over my mouth. Those wild grey eyes bore into mine, and the flash of desire or anger that I saw there is now soft. "Stay with me tonight." Her eyes dart from my lips back up into my gaze. "Please."

Her lips brush against mine as she speaks and my entire body shudders. I can't even speak, her words have rendered my throat dry as burnt firewood. I nod. I wet my lips with my tongue quickly and she watches me. I can't help the ghost of a smile that crosses my lips. She looks back up at me, backing away from me and smoothing out my shirt that she's had in her vice grip. "And when this tour is over, you and I need to talk."

A puff out a short laugh. "You're stronger than you look."

"Johanna," she drags out in a warning tone.

I let my smile fall from my lips and nod again. "After the tour."

...

When I go to sleep that night curled in her embrace, it's the first sleep without nightmares I've had in months. I think the same is true for her.

* * *

Our first stop is District Eleven. Katniss is particularly nervous about our production here since this is Rue's district. Her family - little boys and girls who look just like her - stare at us with uncertainty, but not hatred. Thresh's family is only an older woman - presumably his mother - and a very small boy.

Katniss recites the speech Effie has handed her, but when she looks out to Rue's mother, to her sisters, she stops. She takes hold of my hand tightly.

"Katniss and I owe your families a great debt that we could never repay," I riff, looking briefly from Katniss back out to them. "I didn't know Thresh, but I admired his loyalty. His strength. He played the games the way he wanted to. He was his own man to his very last breath. Something not many people can say in this country, in or outside of that arena." I look over to Rue's family. "And Rue...I did not know as well as Katniss. But her agility, her keen sense of others and her bravery one thousand times her size, made me love her like a sister. If I could trade my life for hers, I would. Since I cannot, in a show of gratitude - Katniss and I will give you one month of our winnings every year for the rest of our lives."

I don't know if what I'm doing is legal. From the gasps I hear behind me and in the audience, I'm sure it's unprecedented. Katniss runs her fingers through my hair and leans over, kissing my cheek. She strokes the arena where she kissed with the back of her hand affectionately. The corner of my mouth twitches upward. I look down at my wrist, at Peeta's token. I've been wearing it every day since I took it from him. I like to imagine that this gesture is one he would've done. He was a much better person than me, and every day I remind myself how lucky I am to be alive, even when I don't feel it.

He would have given anything, he _did _give everything, to be standing here with Katniss. I owe him to try and be a better person. This is hopefully a part of that. Saving Rue, offering myself as a sacrifice for Katniss, taking Violet, donating our winnings - it's Peeta inside me, urging me. Not things I would have done on my own, for sure. I'm not exactly a saint. I'll never be the man Peeta was; not literally or figuratively. I'll never be the person Katniss wants. I'll always just be me.

We are handed large plaques, too large to hold with our bouquets, when Katniss interrupts the ending proceedings to thank Thresh and Rue's families directly. It's moving, but we cannot cry. We cannot do anything but look like we're in love. Even my speech and giving them winnings was probably stupid.

But then they whistle Rue's mockingjay tune. They lift their hands up in the Twelve salute. Everyone. A crowd of people in one show of solidarity. A show of rebellion. We panic in tandem, and Haymitch and Blight appear from seemingly out of nowhere as the Peacekeepers begin to push the crowd back. They pull us into the building, but not before we watch in horror as an old man is thrust to his knees and shot point blank in the head.

...

Blight and Haymitch lead us to the attic of the District Eleven Justice Center. I begin pacing around. "I can't believe that just happened. I knew - I knew about the riots. I knew we had to make believe. I _knew_ and I offered them money! Do you think they'll get those winnings? Do you think they'll ever see it? Because I think they'll be fucking lucky to make it through night!" I grab a nearby statue and hurl it at the wall, where it clangs noisily and falls to the floor.

"This isn't your fault, Johanna," Katniss says lowly, looking toward me.

I whirl around to stare at her. "Isn't it? _I'm_ the one who pulled those berries in the arena. _I'm_ the one who made it possible for both of us to win. _I'm_ the one who should have just let you go home and kiss your stinking boyfriend in the woods," I spit, and I feel Blight's hand on my arm. I wrench it away. "I should have just died."

The slap across my face comes as a total surprise. My impulse to retaliate is curbed when I see who slapped me. Katniss looks up at me, grey eyes glossy. "Don't you _ever _say that again." She storms out of the attic and the three of us stand in silence as we hear her march down the stairs.

"Which part?" I call down the stairs. "The part about your boyfriend or the part about me dying?" I know she can hear me, because the footsteps pause briefly, then continue.

Haymitch walks by me, gruffly shoving me. "Good job, sweetheart."

"Whatever."

* * *

We soldier through the rest of the ceremonies in the districts, keeping things tame and without inciting violence. But it doesn't matter - they look at us not with contempt, but with hope. It's palpable in the crowds - especially in Eight, Four and Three.

When we arrive at the training center before our party, we both know we're doomed. We haven't spoken a word to each other since then, in spite of sleeping in the same bed every night. My little outburst about Gale has put a wedge between us, just like Snow wanted, I'm sure. I'm not in the business of getting Snow what he wants, but I'm also too stubborn to admit I might have overreacted in the attic in Eleven.

It's really a catch-22 to be a stubborn rebel.

...

The banquet at Snow's mansion is even larger than our victory ceremony. More musicians, more food, more people, more cameras. They took Katniss away from me after our interview so she could change outfits, something I declined to do. They had me dress like a formal knight, they even gave me a sword (that cannot come unsheathed, I was disappointed to find out) and I look awesome. A velvet black blazer with no blouse underneath, and leather breeches tucked into some knee-high boots with a five inch heel. I look equal parts feminine and masculine, and truth be told, it fits my personality and I look hot.

I've only seem glimpses of President Snow, like a house-cat's shadow. My escort had told me he didn't enjoy parties, but I imagine he'd want to partake in this one. Blight and I gorge ourselves on more chocolate-covered fruits at the end of the dessert table, just at the base of the stairs. I hear a few gasps and Blight and I search the room for the object of their open-mouth stares when I see her.

It's like a scene from the pirate stories my father would tell. The beautiful princess would descend a staircase to greet her knight, and the rascal pirate would be watching from a distance - loving her from afar. But I'm not the rascal pirate in this scenario - I'm the knight. This is _my _beautiful princess descending the staircase. At least, that's what we want everyone to think. Her dress is a pale pink that glimmers off every single light and candle in the place. Her hair is in a loose braid, similar to how her mother does it, but looser and fuller. Her face is nearly free of make-up, but she still manages to look incredible.

Once Katniss gets to the bottom of the stairs, everyone goes back to chattering amongst themselves, their eyes on us. I take her hand and around us I can hear sighs of women and the shouts for us to dance. Katniss looks at me, eyes like storm clouds, a flush on her cheeks. She looks at me shyly - how she can continue to be humble when she looks like that is beyond irritating.

"We don't have to dance if you don't want to," I whisper, gazing into her nervous hues.

Her lips curl into a small smile. "Dance with me."

I lead her out on to the dance floor, her hand tightly locked with mine. The band begins playing a song - a wedding song from Seven - and I glare at them from the floor. I've been dancing to this tune my whole life - so I lead Katniss in the dance, which she picks up with ease. My hand in hers, my arm around her waist - I feel a thrum of satisfaction in my chest at her nearness. Even if this entire night is a farce, it's a beautiful lie.

* * *

I've barely gotten through the door to my bedroom in the training center when Katniss presses me against it and crashes her lips against mine hungrily. The urgency sucks the breath from my lungs, cutting off the oxygen to my brain. Her teeth bump against mine, her tongue slipping in between them to assault my mouth. She tastes sweet, like the cakes and chocolates we'd had at the party, and it's all I can sense as she pins my arms against the door, clutching my biceps through my jacket.

She moves her lips along my jaw, causing my heart to palpitate in my chest. Her hands grip the velvet of my jacket and she roughly shoves it down my shoulders and tosses it over a nearby chair. When her hands return to me she gasps at the feel of my skin against her fingertips. If she was expecting a shirt, she wasn't looking at me close enough all night.

One hand slips under the top of my skintight leather breeches, running along around my hip, while her other hand slides up the expanse of my stomach, in between my breasts, until she cups it around my neck. I break to breathe, leaning my head on the door. Katniss' forehead is resting on my shoulder, her breaths warming up my exposed skin.

"Wow," she mumbles against my skin.

"Wow's right." It takes all of my willpower not to rip that stupid dress off of her, especially as I see her chest pushing against the restrictive material of the bodice. "Not that I want to break the mood but, um, what the hell _was_ that?"

She lifts her head up, puffing air out to move a strand of hair. Her grey eyes faltered, looking at my collarbone. "I-I don't know."

"Really? Because you seemed pretty sure a second ago."

Katniss rolls her eyes and turns around, walking toward my bed. She sits down on it, her puffy dress splaying out in a very unladylike fashion. "I think that we need to talk now." She gives me a sideways glance. "You should probably put a shirt on."

I quirk my eyebrow, giving her a small smirk. "Does this distract you?" I tease, placing my hands on my hips. She gives me a hard stare and I relent, picking out a nightshirt from the closet and pulling it over my torso. I sit down on the bed next to her, trying my best not to stare at her kiss-swollen lips. "Look, we don't need to have a big one-on-one emotional chat. Because to be honest, I'm not good at that anyway."

"Neither am I."

"Agreed. So let's just call it what it is, okay?" I take one of her hands in mine, running my thumb along her knuckles. "This is an arrangement. You never meant for us to have to do this. Neither did I, but I made some ...decisions in the arena that fortunately saved our lives, and unfortunately bound us to this _arrangement_." I narrow my eyes at her. "I don't like to share my feelings, so I'm only going to go through this once, understand? I'm not Peeta. I'll...never be Peeta."

Katniss furrows her brow at me, tilting her head to the side. "Who asked you to be Peeta?"

I sigh, letting go of her hand and standing up from the bed. Pressing my palm to my forehead I pace around the room. "Nobody did, but Katniss, that's the kind of person you're supposed to be with. That was your future. Someone kind and patient, someone loving and giving. Someone, I don't know, male? That's not me. That's never been me. It will never _be _me. I'm nobody. I'll always just be Johanna Mason, the girl with the ax who got lucky. I haven't loved you for years like Peeta or Gale. A-and maybe we would've had a shot had Snow not insisted we act like what we did in the arena was out of love instead of desperation. Maybe then I could've ...I don't know, convinced you to love me a little?"

I let out another long sigh, not bothering to look at Katniss while I lay my cards out. Go big or go home, right? "You were going to eat the berries because you didn't want them to win, and I get that. Fuck, I respect the hell out of you for that. You didn't do it for love. You did it to get back at them."

A dreadful silence fills the room. "Are you done?" Katniss says finally, and I turn and look at her. I nod. "You are right. You're not Peeta. You're not Gale. This is not the future I had in mind." I swallow, looking down at the floor. "I don't know what kind of future I was going to have. I only thought about the next day, where I was getting food, going to school, if Prim's goat had been milked." She smiles sadly, wistfully remembering when her life was a lot less complicated, no doubt.

"But as far as love?" She shrugs, "I never thought about it. Not with anyone. And after I was reaped, I didn't think about it at all. Not even when they tried to set me up with Peeta. I just thought about how that would get me through the Games." She rubs her eyes with her palms, then pulls out her plait and runs her fingers through her hair. "It was pretty selfish. I didn't really know how he felt. I was just so concerned with surviving. But you..." She looks up at me. "You were different."

"Different?"

"Made me ..feel different. I don't know." She levels her eyes at me. "I told you this was hard for me. Not because I don't have feelings for you. But because I do."

I raise my eyebrow. "You do?" My voice sounds small again, like it did in Snow's office.

"Yeah, I do," she replies, giving me a smile. She stands from the bed, her dress swishing as she crosses the room toward me. "You're not nobody. You're Johanna Mason. The girl with the ax who didn't get lucky. She won because she's smart, and brave, and full of the kindness and patience she thinks she doesn't have." I heighten my other eyebrow and she grins. "All right not the patience, but the other stuff yeah, you do." She places her hand on my sternum, rubbing gentle circles on my chest. "You're incredible, Johanna."

"No I'm not," I say softly, shaking my head.

"Shut up." I smirk at her and she smirks back up at me. "You said you admired me because I went against what they wanted. So why do you think I'm doing this if I care so little about the Capitol?"

"For Prim," I reply quickly. "For your mother. For Gale. For whoever else Snow said he would murder if you didn't." Katniss' smile falls. "I'm not stupid, Katniss."

She shakes her head, lifting her other hand to tuck hair behind my ear, moving her hand to cup my jaw. "I don't mean in front of the cameras. I mean this, right now. Or before when I attacked you," she explains shyly. Her small pink tongue darts out to wet her lips, and I can't help but be mesmerized but it. She moves her hand up from my chest to the other side of my face, forcing me to look at her.

It felt like someone had finally pulled a handkerchief off my eyes when I look down at her. Those grey eyes searching mine, but now I know for what. For signs that I understand what she's feeling, that I can help her. I push her hands away and cradle her face in my hands, pulling her gently toward me and pressing my lips against hers as softly as possible.

This kiss is different. It's not hungry or desperate, it's slow and searching. Katniss' hands move across the material of my shirt, trying to find purchase somewhere on my chest. They rise up my neck, leaving a tingling and burning sensation in their wake, and up into my hair, weaving into my dark locks. There is a slight edge of heat behind the kiss, whilst simultaneously maintaining the soft implore of her lips against mine.

Our future is uncertain. Who knows if we have failed Snow's test? Will we go home to razed homes and murdered family? Who knows? Not enough oxygen is getting to my brain for me to even consider the questions. I just don't want her to stop kissing me, because I'm starting to need it like water, air, or food.

Maybe I'm the old man with his glasses on his head - I've been holding Katniss' heart too, I just didn't know it.

* * *

**A/N: You all are the best for continuing to follow and review this story. I'm having a lot of fun writing it! I'm not getting much sleep, but I'm getting writing done so all's well.**


	7. Other useless things

"Do you think we pulled it off?" Katniss asks me from her pillow, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"I don't know." I pause. "I don't care."

"I care," she says, looking toward me. "If we failed, our families are in danger."

I snort. "Our families are in danger anyway, Katniss. Win or lose, this rebellion isn't going anywhere. No amount of shit we do is going to make a difference." I let out a long sigh. "At least the country's in love with your sister now. Her and your mom should be safe. If Snow touched her, I think he'd really have riots on his hands."

My silence on my family speaks volumes. My father is not safe. If we didn't do as Snow wanted, and I don't think we did, then there's no stopping him from having my father killed. The weird thing about victors - they always seem to lack family.

We have detoured to Seven so I can pack some of my things and see my father before moving temporarily to Twelve before the next Games. I'll be expected to mentor out of Seven, but everyone came to the conclusion that it would look better if I lived with Katniss in the meantime. Neither of us objected.

Out of the window I can see the growing thickets of pines and I know we must be nearing my house. _Home_. Home for me is the smell of pulp, the buzz of saws, the sweet aroma of pine, the clang of an ax, my father's fiddle, the feeling of mud in my boots as I track through the woods. But with Katniss lying next to me, the thought of home feels strange. Home suddenly feels more like the smell of lavender and leather, the one Katniss carries with her. Home is the warmth of a wildly beating heart that calms when I run my fingers through her hair. Home is staring into those endless grey eyes when they wake up from a fresh nightmare, whispering words in her ear and placing kisses on her face until she goes back to sleep.

_Ugh, _I'm such a fucking sucker for her it's pathetic.

Her head rests in the crook of my shoulder, my arm snaked under her neck. The length of her body is entangled with mine beneath the plush comforter, clad in cotton pajamas a bit too long for her (they're mine) since she hasn't left my room. We've been inseparable since she cornered me in my room and kissed me. We've done nothing but kiss, eat, and sleep since that moment. Nothing more, nothing less. Admittedly, it's driving me crazy to have her so close and not be able to _really feel _her, but it's far too soon for that. At least for Katniss. If we ever ...do that, well, I want it to be special. I don't want it to be some frenzied hook-up that we both forget in the morning.

It's been the best two nights of my life, though. Which is pathetic and truly, I should feel embarrassed, but I just don't give a fuck.

"What's it like in Seven?" Katniss asks sleepily, wrapping her arm around my waist.

"It smells," I reply honestly and Katniss lets out a low chortle. "It smells like sewer in some places, 'cause of the factories. And like maples and pine everywhere else. There's always a lot of music. Swimming and canoeing in the big rivers. Hiking in the mountains."

"Music?" Katniss asks, surprised.

I nod. "We play fiddles and big guitars. Someone usually has pan flute, drums. Nearly every night around a big bonfire in the forest, the men and women gather. to drink and try and forget that life sucks. And when the fire dies down, everyone gets loaded and has sex or goes to sleep." Katniss' grey eyes go wide and I smirk, rolling over slightly to lean down and give her a chaste kiss. "Not in front of everyone, we're not savages." I roll on to my back again and look up at the ceiling.

I watch her mull that over for a moment before her eyes rest on me again. "Did you ever...?"

I quirk my eyebrow. "Did I ever what?" Even though this girl has pinned me to a wall and kissed me several times and is wearing my clothes, she's still a little prude and I can't help but exploit it a little.

"You know..." she pushes, a faint rose-colored blush on her cheeks.

"No, I _don't_ know." I hear her huff in frustration and I let out a laugh. "Yeah, a few times."

There is a long pause before she speaks again. "Do you miss it?"

"The sex?" I look over at her. I can now see her glaring at me and I grin. "Home?" She nods. "When I'm with you I don't."

She raises herself on to her elbow, peering down at me. I use my now free arm to run my fingers through her hair. "How come I don't know when you're having nightmares?"

I exhale through my nose and bite the inside of my cheek. "I don't wake up gasping and thrashing like you. I mean, not since the Games. I just wake up paralyzed with fear."

A look of hurt comes into her eyes and she smoothes some hair from in front of my face. "You should wake me."

I shrug. "It's not necessary. My nightmares are usually about losing you. Once I see you're here, I feel better."

* * *

We arrive in Seven early in the morning, about an hour before my father would be going to work but he would be awake. Everyone had to de-board the train because it wouldn't stay in the station long enough for me to get my things. The escorts make their way to he Mayor's house, since it's probably the nicest thing in Seven other than the Victor's Village. Haymitch headed to the market to procure some liquor, and Katniss and Violet are with me.

I'm not nervous about Katniss meeting my father. From all the embarrassing wailing I did at night, and how much of our interactions have been public, he knows who she is and how I feel about her. We never got around to talking about it - we Masons don't exactly do a share-care circle around the fire at night - but he knew. On the mornings when I went downstairs with bags under my eyes and the whites of them bloodshot from crying, he'd pour me some black coffee, kiss the top of my head, and sit there with me in the kitchen and play his fiddle. It was his way of saying, _It's gonna be okay, kid. _

As we approach my house I can see the kitchen light on through the window. A slow warmth spreads through my chest as I smell the coffee wafting through the air. I break into a run, excitedly jogging up the few steps onto my porch, then throwing the open door wide and crossing the threshold.

And I feel like I've been punched in the gut. My father sits at the table, his head whipping toward me as I run inside. In the corner, holding a saucer and a small teacup, is Snow.

I don't even have time to think before I react. "What the fuck?"

"Johanna," my father admonishes sternly. "Watch your language." As I watch him look from me to Snow, I have a moment to appraise his appearance. He looks older somehow; not just the small wisps of white that have penetrated his raven-colored hair, but the small wrinkles below his eyes that I never noticed. We look almost identical - dark hazel eyes, smaller nose, bad attitude that manifests in a lopsided smirk that he usually has. But not today. His lips are set in a firm line, not happy or sad. In the few years I've been eligible to be reaped, he had a similar look on those mornings - a heavily guarded fear that you can only see in the flashes in his eyes.

Snow lets out a soft chuckle, placing the cup and saucer on the table. "Have no fear, Mr. Mason, I assure you my sensibilities are not as delicate as all that." He looks over to me, his icy blue eyes narrowing in my direction. Katniss finally comes inside with Violet and they both stop short when they see what I see. Katniss immediately comes to my side, a half-step in front of me, and Violet gives me a nod and goes upstairs.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, unable and unwilling to disguise the hatred in my voice.

Snow smiles, sitting down in one of my kitchen table chairs - one of the chairs _my _father built - and sips his coffee. "I came to congratulate you on the Tour. I won't be able to make it all the way out to Twelve, and I wanted to get you a gift. Both of you."

He takes a small box from his pocket, a white box wrapped in a crimson bow, and slides it toward me. I make no motion toward it, I only stare into his eyes. They'd be a remarkable color if they weren't so backlit with malice and distrust. "Thank you," I reply flatly, looking from him to my father.

"I've been talking to your father, Miss Mason. I'm sorry to hear about your mother. Losing a parent so young can be quite devastating for anyone, especially a young girl. Miss Everdeen would know," he adds, looking to Katniss. I restrain the urge to throttle him, instead I gently place my hand on Katniss' arm. "It seems he has done a fine job raising an extraordinary daughter. I said the same thing to Mrs. Everdeen when I saw her last."

"Wow great I'm so glad we've all bonded so much but that doesn't explain _why _you are in _my _house."

My father opens his eyes and glares at me, conveying both fear and authority. He has never been a fan of the Capitol; my mother died of a wasting disease that he was sure the Capitol had a cure for, but they never sent a doctor. We sent letters, made phone calls, did everything within our power to get her help but none ever came. The healers in our district could do nothing. We watched her die slowly and painfully. Neither of us could forgive the Capitol for that.

"I was just here to forward my congratulations to your father, and to give you both this gift. As a token of my appreciation for your performance on the Tour." The phone rings in the other room and my father excuses himself, walking into the living room to answer it. Alone with Snow I feel vulnerable; I've killed a bunch of people much stronger than him, but every second his eyes bore into mine I think I'm being cut smaller and smaller. Somehow, I rummage up the courage from within me.

"Cut the bullshit," I say suddenly, placing both my hands on the table and leaning toward the grey-haired man. "Why are you really here?"

His eyes twinkle as he smirks, standing up from my table. "I paid you both a visit before the Tour to instruct you on how you were to present yourselves. You did quite well," he says, looking at me. "Your devotion to Katniss is rather touching." I roll my eyes at him, my fingers gripping the wood of the table as tightly as possible. "And Miss Everdeen, you were commendable. I'm sure it wasn't easy, considering your relationship with the 'cousin' from Twelve, and your tragically short affair with Peeta Mellark." I can see Katniss' muscles stiffen at the mention of Gale and Peeta, but she remains mute. "Unfortunately, no one outside the Capitol was fooled. In spite of both of you upholding your ends of the bargain, the endeavor was a failure."

I know he's trying to get a rise out of me, and unfortunately it's working. I can feel my blood pressure rise as he walks around my kitchen, proud like a peacock with his assuredness. Katniss doesn't respond, she only stares at him with a hard glare. We failed? Of course we failed. No amount of acting can overturn the tide of rebellion. He knew we would fail. "I agreed not to lie to you both and I intend on keeping that promise. I wonder, however, if you are as honest with each other as you are with me?"

For a moment I'm confused, but then I just shake my head. "If you're talking about Katniss pretending to me in love with me, that's not a surprise, Snow. I've known about it since before the Tour."

He chuckles. "Ah yes, I'm sure someone as astute as you can see through this young girl's affection, but I wonder." He looks at Katniss, whose eyes of hatred have turned to fear. "I wonder if she told you _our_ accord." I dart my eyes briefly to Katniss, then back to Snow. It's enough for him to know that I don't understand. He smiles wider. "Well distrust is no place to start a relationship, that's for sure. But far be it for me to try and meddle in your affairs."

"What are you talking about?" I ask, stepping in front of him as he walks toward the front door.

He places a hand on my shoulder, running a shudder through my body. He leans down and whispers in my ear. "You had to convince me. She only had to convince you. Was she _convincing_, Miss Mason?" My throat bobs as I swallow down the bile rising through my esophagus. "I offered to let her marry the boy from Twelve if you both succeeded. She took it without hesitation. Now I wonder - whom will she protect? You? Or him?"

His whisper is loud enough for Katniss to hear, and from the look in her eyes, I know she did. Snow wishes my father farewell and exits with his Peacekeeper. I'm stuck where I'm standing, my eyes squeezed shut. I feel like I do in the bath - every sound muted, like the rumbling of Snow's car's engine, my father's words to whoever is on the phone, the faraway buzz of a chainsaw. It was all an act. Every touch, every kiss, every breath against my skin behind closed doors was all to fool me, so I could better fool the Capitol.

If Snow is telling the truth, then her friend Gale is in trouble. He's expendable if he's not married to Katniss. If she marries him, he would be protected. The districts are in rebellion anyway, so it doesn't matter that we keep up appearances. The Capitol citizens are too vapid to care about her fleeting affections. But I'll have to see her every year the Games for the rest of my life.

My future begins to flash before me like a broken television reception - them getting married, seeing her pregnant belly during the Games, the news of their children all over Panem, seeing her at the banquets with someone else's ring on her finger, my loneliness at knowing I've lost the only thing I've loved.

"I guess it's time for you to get home to loverboy." The timbre of my voice is strange and disconnected. I walk almost in a trance to the sink, thrusting the hot water on as high as it can go. I rub my hands underneath the stream, splashing it on my face. I rub my hand around the nape of my neck, then along my arms. I want to burn away every place she touched me.

I hear her footsteps before she has a chance to reach for me and I whip around. "Don't touch me."

Grey eyes narrow at me, her head tilted to the side. "You believe him?"

I scoff. "Why wouldn't I? What use is there in lying to me? I saw you kissing Gale. Snow showed me the video." Her eyes go to the floor and I smile in the most sickly sweet way I can. "I was willing to overlook it because I'm so fucking stupid when it comes to you." I use my finger to lift her chin up. "But not anymore, Twelve."

"I have to protect my family."

"Yeah, protect everyone you love which apparently does not include me." She goes to object and I raise my hand. "Oh don't bother, Katniss, really. Fool me once, right?" Violet comes down the stairs, two suitcases in her hand. "Sorry, Vi, but we aren't going anywhere." My father emerges from the living room, scratching his cropped black hair in confusion.

"You're not?"

"No." I turn to Katniss. "The Mockingjay is going home. Alone." I point my gaze at her. "See you at the Games."

* * *

When my mother was dying, my father was horrible to be around. If he wasn't working or trying to get her help, he was holed up in their bedroom, drinking. We probably single-handedly kept the apothecary in business between medicine for my mother and liquor for my father. He drowned himself in it so as to not see the world.

After she died, something changed in him. He took more of an interest in me, sobered up, and never let another bottle of liquor through our door. But as I sit on my bed, he'd be appalled at the amount of bottles scattered on my rug. I've boozed more than Haymitch, I think, and I have a much lower tolerance. Blight has stopped by every so often, trying to lure me out of my room. Usually it ends with me tossing a bottle at him and his leaving in frustration.

I feel broken. I don't know how else to describe it. Shattered, maybe. Sometimes, when a log gets cut after it sits too long in the sun, it gets abnormally dry. A flexible, tough log of oak, for instance, can't even take one swing of an ax because when you do, it splinters into shards and is useless, as far as building is concerned. Then it becomes kindling for the bonfires. That's how I feel - like someone took an ax and split me into shards. Now I'm just waiting to get tossed in the fire with the other useless things.

Violet emerges into my room one morning, motioning to my television. I'm about four bottles into my nightly drink-til-I-pass-out ritual, so I toss her the remote clumsily and flop back on to my bed. With a sigh she turns the television on, and I see Snow's face appear on the screen. He's announcing the Quarter Quell. My first as a mentor and it'll be a doozy, I'm sure.

"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors. If only one of each gender is alive, the tributes face a choice: send both in with no mentor, and one will be provided by the Capitol. Or send in one tribute alone."

Violet's gasp and her clutching my hand pulls me from my stupor. My father's loud swearing and a large crash downstairs breaks my concentration. The existing pool of victors. I will have to compete again. This is my punishment for defying the Capitol. As if having my heart torn from my chest isn't enough, they want to kill me again. My thoughts are sluggish because of the liquor, but realizations come to me slowly like the dripping of a faucet.

I'll have to go in with Blight.

I'll have to go in with Katniss.

I might have to kill Blight or Katniss.

I'm going to die.

As much as just the mere thought of Katniss makes me want to simultaneously toss my lunch and strangle her, I couldn't actually bring her any harm. The same with Blight - I've come to rely on him as not only a mentor, but a friend. If Snow wanted to see me kill myself with berries, I'm sure he'll be delighted to watch Katniss shoot an arrow through my heart - this time literally and not figuratively.

Before I can think about what I'm doing I mumble to Violet to stay put, toss my jacket on and storm out the door.

...

I'm at Haymitch's house in under two days. I don't bother knocking because let's face it, he's not going to be able to ward off an intruder even if he wasn't off his ass. I open his door wide, hearing the clanging of bottles as I push it open. I hear a mumble of something unintelligible from the kitchen so I follow the noise until I find Haymitch at his table, swinging a flask in his hand.

"My my, if it isn't Johanna Mason of District Seven. To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?"

I sit down at the table across from him, grabbing his flask before he can defend himself and taking a long pull from it. With a shrug he pulls out another bottle, pushes the cap off with his thumb and begins to down it. I set the flask on the table and look at him. "I'm just here to make sure you're not going in the arena."

Haymitch lets out a gruff laugh and takes another sip from his beverage. "And what makes you think that?"

I raise my eyebrow. "We both know you're not going to let Katniss die. She will die if she's left out here alone with no one to protect her. And we also both know you're as useless as a pile of shit in the arena." He pretends to look offended and I laugh. "Maybe twenty-five years ago you were something but now you're just a drunk. A drunk with a good talent for sponsors."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." I purse my lips, staring into the bloodshot blue eyes of the Twelve mentor. "So we're agreed?"

"Let me ask you a question, Jo." I roll my eyes but nod and take another pull from his flask. "You're here to make sure I protect Katniss. I assume you're going into the arena to do the same. You could just as well send in Bloat and just watch."

"Blight," I correct.

"Eh Blight, Plague, it's a terrible name for a man. Either way, considering how things went in Seven, I'm just surprised to see you still care."

The smug way he presents his case makes me want to slap him. But the warmth in my belly from the liquor is spreading into my bloodstream, and I'm having a hard time forcing up any anger. "That wasn't a question."

He cants his head to the side. "Okay, _why _do you care? I mean, you got burned pretty good by the girl on fire, right?" I nod. I think my submission to his questioning makes him soften a bit. His voice takes on a less rough quality. "When you talked about Katniss at the interviews - the thing about the glyph in the cave - was that something Desiree had whipped up?"

I'm temporarily confused by his question - partly due to the liquor, partly due to the fact that I hadn't referred to my escort by her name probably ever - but then I shake my head. "Nope."

"Damn, I thought for sure she had written that. Either her or Odair. He's always had a flair for poetry." I didn't know Finnick knew anything aside from how to woo women. But I suppose poetry is part of that equation. Especially for the uniquely dim-witted people of the Capitol. "Mrs. Everdeen was not pleased when Katniss came home alone, you know."

I raise my eyebrow at him. "What does she care?"

"Because she likes you. And you told her that you loved her daughter. But seeing as how you kicked her out of your house and told her to marry the boy, well now she's not so fond." Haymitch takes another long sip of his drink. "That, and all the incessant crying Katniss has done." Off my surprised and guilty look Haymitch puffs out a short laugh. "You broke that girl's heart, Johanna."

"_I _broke _her _heart? She made an agreement to marry Gale. To _marry_ him. To spend the rest of her life as Mrs. Hawthorne, rich and plump with little brown-haired, grey-eyed kids. She chose him over me."

"You don't need protection, Johanna, stop being such a crybaby. She chose to protect her family because she knew you didn't need it."

"Bullshit, she's wanted a way out of this since day one. How unbelievably _kind _of Snow to offer her one and -"

"She asked me to protect you," Haymitch interrupts loudly, slamming his fist down on the table. It makes me start, nearly tipping over the flask. "The minute that broadcast was over she was here, begging me to try and convince you to stay out of the arena. She asked me to promise that if you ended up going in - which we both know you're too stupid to stay out of trouble - that I would help your mentor get you sponsors."

"That's absurd," I reply automatically, downing the rest of his flask and tossing the empty container to him. It hits him square in the chest and falls lamely to the floor. "First off, there's no way I'd let Katniss sacrifice herself for me. Second, she's not in the business of getting me out of trouble. Unless it involves acting like she loves me and betraying me in the end."

"You really are dense, aren't you, sweetheart?" I shoot him a glare and he shakes his mop of blonde hair. "She thinks you hate her."

"Good, I do hate her." _No I don't; I love her and I can't stop._

"Hate her so much you're willing to die for her." I can't exactly refute that so I look down at the table. Haymitch leans back into his chair, running his thick fingers through his tangles of light hair. "I think I know the girl pretty well by now, and I've got to tell you. She's never looked at anyone - not Peeta, not Gale - the way she looked at you."

A sit there for a moment, allowing Haymitch's observation to wash over me. "She made me feel like a fool."

"You are a fool." I kick him under the table with my boot, hitting him in the shin. He winces and swipes at me with his hand pathetically. "Maybe if you weren't so impulsive with your decisions, you guys could have talked about it."

"Whatever." I abruptly stand from my chair, bracing myself on the table for a moment as the sudden movement makes my alcohol-laden brain swim. Haymitch takes this moment to put his hand on mine, grasping my bracelet.

"Do you think Peeta would have chosen his pride over love?" he asks, tapping his token.

I snap my hand away. "I'm not Peeta," I spit out harshly.

He stands up from his seated position, his chair toppling backward onto the floor. "You're damn right you're not! That boy was selfless. Not a selfish bone in his body. And he would trade anything for the chance to be where you're standing now. He'd die a second death for her if he could. And you can't even get the courage to go over there and apologize. You don't deserve to wear that token."

"Go to hell, Haymitch!" I yell as I walk toward his front door.

"Already there, sweetheart."

* * *

**A/N: So much aaaangst. I'll _eventually_ be better to our girls. Like, _eventually_. For real though, you guys are far too kind with your comments and all the new follows! ****HELLO NEW PEOPLE! ****This is me reaching out to give you all a hug for being wicked supportive. Imagine the hug, please. Admittedly, m****y weekend was kind of a wash-out (aka I drank too much) so I buckled down and wrote this out for you all tonight. It's 1am. Just for you guys. No one else.**

**OH and just in case anyone was looking for more Joniss (of much higher quality) and DIDN'T know about this amazing fic:**

**www dot fanfiction dot net/s/10128404/1/There-s-nowhere-I-d-rather-be**

** Please take this link (do it correctly, of course...) and read her story. It's truly amazing. And ending soon, so at least you all won't be held up for weeks waiting to see what happens next like I was. It's scary good. Prepare to give up hours of your life reading it because it's awesome. :)**


	8. Remember the red river valley

The next few weeks are a blur until the day of the Reaping. Violet wakes me up early, ignoring my complaints about being hungover and forcing me into the shower. Once I'm dressed I make my way downstairs, where my father is waiting for me at the table. My favorite breakfast - skillet potatoes and sugared ham - is steaming off the plate.

I sit down next to him, silently digging in to my food. He finishes his meal quickly, then pulls out his fiddle and begins picking out an old Seven tune my mom used to sing to me. When she would sing it sometimes my dad would accompany her on his fiddle in my room. It would wake me up instead of lulling me to sleep, but those were some of the happiest moments of my childhood. Before the times of late night coughing and the clinking of liquor bottles; our house was filled with song.

"_From this valley they say that you are going,  
I shall miss your bright eyes and sweet smile.  
For they say you are taking the sunshine  
that has brightened my paths a while."  
_

I join him in the last verse, trying to hold back my tears. I'm a big girl, I don't want to cry in front of my daddy. But he and I both know I'm not coming back from this alive. I can hear Violet's sniffles as our voices - similar in their husky timbre but a few octaves apart - slowly sing the last stanza of the old folk song.

_"Come and sit by my side if you love me.  
Do not hasten to bid me adieu.  
Just remember the red river valley,  
and the cowboy who has loved you so true."  
_

He places the fiddle gently on the table, and we both stand up and face each other. He wraps me in a tight hug, resting his chin on the top of my head. "No matter what happens, Josie, I'm proud of you." He pulls away from me, placing both of his strong hands on my shoulders. "Your mother would be so proud of you." I can see his dark eyes getting glossy as he tries to maintain his composure. "You - you give 'em hell, kiddo," he instructs, pulling me into another hug.

I place my hand on his scruffy cheek, giving him a soft smile. "Take care of Violet for me." He nods, turning and coughing when I step away from him. I walk to the door, stopping in front of Violet. Tears are streaming freely down her caramel-colored skin, leaving dark marks in their wake. "You take care of that lug for me, too, okay? And the second you wanna go home, do it." Violet nods and pulls me into a fierce embrace.

_You are strong. Please live._

I let out a short laugh. "I'm going to try to live. But, no guarantees. All I can promise is that if someone kills Katniss, I'll murder every single person in that arena myself." Violet gives me a sad half-smile and nods toward the door. They'll be at the Reaping, no doubt, but Blight and I have to get there a few minutes early to decide if we're both going in or not.

Violet takes my hand and motions for me to turn around. I comply, and she pulls my hair into a ponytail, tying it with a green ribbon I know she made herself. I appraise my appearance in the kitchen window with a nod. "It's beautiful." With one last look toward her and my father, I exit my house. I release a shuddered breath as I walk toward the town square, giving one glance over my shoulder at the large cabin. My house. I'll never see the facade of that home ever again. I'll never retrace these steps, feeling the damp earth of Seven beneath my feet. I'll never smell the coffee wafting through the window or feel the heat of the lamp on the porch.

I'm dressed in what's pretty much typical attire for Seven - a pair of jeans, working boots, and a tight fitting flannel plaid shirt. I could be going to work logging, but instead I'm making the slow walk to my own demise. When I return, I'll be in a plain pine coffin with my things - my pinecone necklace, Peeta's token, and the emerald green hair tie Violet gave me. Hopefully, if there's enough of me to bury. I wouldn't be surprised if I step off the platform and get blasted to bits.

...

Desiree pulls my name first and I step forward on the riser. She reaches into the bowl with Blight's name and pulls his as well. We didn't even have to talk about it - there was no way he wasn't going in again. He had just given me one look with his green eyes and I knew we were going into this together. We stand in solidarity on the platform, our clasped hands raised high over our heads.

We are pushed through the center and practically right on to the train. No time for good-byes, no empty moments for sentimentality. Just business as usual as the Peacekeepers thrust us into the train car and Seven becomes just a green dip on the horizon behind us. I wonder if Blight has any family he's left behind. Even though we've become close, we don't really talk about our pasts much. He knows my mother is dead, but I don't know anything about his family.

I make it my mission to find out. After we've stuffed ourselves at dinner and retire to our rooms, I pay him a visit. When I open his door, he's reading a small book by candlelight. He looks very surprised to see me, but he relaxes and smiles, placing a ribbon on his page and closing the book. "Come in, Jo."

I close the door behind me, crossing over to his bed. I sit down on his navy sheets, bouncing on the plush mattress. "You got nice digs. I think this room is nicer than mine," I remark with a pout.

Blight gives a soft chuckle. "Well I _have _been a victor for longer than you. I think that should afford me some preferential treatment."

I narrow my eyes toward him, a small smirk on my face. "You know when we met I thought you were a real idiot."

"You think everyone's an idiot, so I'm not surprised. But I'm sure I didn't give you a lot of reasons to trust me." The look of guilt on his face makes me sad. I hadn't really given him a chance when I was reaped; I was so angry at the situation that I couldn't really think of his feelings.

"They didn't let us say good-bye to anyone," I say suddenly, eyeing him. This is my subtle segue into getting him to open up about his family. It's about as subtle as a hammer to the head and he knows it.

"Both of my parents are dead. Old age, if you can believe it." I can't and the surprise is evident on my face. "I'm a good deal older than you, you know."

"You're in pretty good shape considering."

"Thanks. I always kind of figured something like this would happen so I've tried not to destroy myself. You never stop feeling like you're in the arena." I nod in agreement, pulling my leg underneath my knee and facing him. "I have one brother, he lives in Six. Big morphling addict, unfortunately. Haven't seen him since the day I was Reaped, 'bout twenty years ago. But I, uh, I'm married."

My eyes are as wide as dinner plates when he reveals this information to be. I guess it shouldn't be surprising - victors have their pick of men and women after the Games. Blight isn't half-bad looking so I'm sure every woman in town wanted to be Mrs. Blight. But trying to imagine Blight with a woman is weird. "What's her name?"

"Kendra." A small smile appears on his face. "I've known her since we were toddlers." He drags his gaze up and looks at me. "I've never loved anyone else."

"So why did you volunteer? You could have stayed out."

He shakes his head with a sad smile. "I love her with everything I am. But I don't want to live the rest of my life as a Capitol puppet. She doesn't want that life for me, either." He grabs my hands, in a gesture I now know means 'pay attention to what I'm about to say.' "I know you don't want to hear it, but you're going to listen to me. I know you want to save Katniss. You want her to emerge alive from the arena. So do I. She's the face of this rebellion, you know that, right?" I nod. "But hear me out: love her while you can. Don't spend the last few days of your lives hating each other over some stupid thing Katniss may or may not have agreed to when she didn't know how you felt and the damn president himself was in her house."

I open my mouth but he shakes his head. "You were jealous - are jealous, fine. It's only human. Don't let some jealousy and petty pride get in the way of what you want. I would love to be able to spend a few more weeks with my wife. Nothing on this planet would make me happier. You have the chance to be with the person you love. That makes you extraordinarily lucky, even in these circumstances. Don't ruin it."

* * *

Leave it to stupid Bloat to make me feel even worse than I already do. Haymitch's speech about Peeta had struck a blow to my ego, then Blight's confession gutted me even further. I'm silent as my prep team tearfully remakes me. Hiss has her composure, but the whites of her eyes are bloodshot red. I'm endeared to think that they actually are sad for me. They might be a vapid bunch of idiots, but they're _my _vapid bunch of idiots.

It's going to be weird to be with Blight in my carriage. The poor boy I had gone in with the first time, whose name tragically escapes me, I paid him no attention. I had already placed my eyes on Katniss and my heart and attention never left. When we finally make our way into the Remake Center, the chariots are waiting. Unlike last year, the victors are talking amongst themselves in small cliques. All of them are old friends; this is probably heartbreaking for them. I look for Blight or Haymitch, but I can't find either so I make my way to my horse.

"Sugar cube?" Finnick Odair pops up next to me, tossing a crunchy sugar cube into his mouth. I shake my head. "That's a shame. It's for the horses, but they've got all their lives ahead of them to eat sweet things. You and I, well, we aren't so lucky. If we see something sweet we like, we have to grab it."

"I'm sure on every girl in the Capitol falls for this thinly veiled sexual innuendo and your," I eye his extremely revealing knot outfit, "junk. I'm sure it's enough to drop the panties."

Finnick lets out a small laugh and extends his hand. "We haven't properly met. Finnick Odair."

"Johanna Mason."

He rolls his stunning sea foam green eyes. "Trust me, love, your name is as famous as mine around here. Nobody has any secrets in the good ol' Capitol of Panem." He leans in close to my ear. "Not even you."

I want to take a step back but I'm already flush against my horse so I just stand, unmoved. He looks down the row where Katniss is chatting with Haymitch. We exchange a glance and I tilt my head to the side. "Don't even."

He smirks. "What? The pure little princess from Panem? Trust me, Jo, no one's going anywhere near her. Watching your Games, seeing your interviews? You've practically stamped your name on her forehead." He pops another sugar cube in his mouth. The glint in his eye wavers for a moment. "Besides, I know what it's like to love someone with your whole heart. Nothing stands in the way of that. Not even me and all my handsome glory," he jokes. He takes my hand and places the last of his sugar into my palm and closes my fingers over it. "That'll be our little secret." He gives me a wink and struts off back to his chariot where a very elderly woman waits for him. I didn't watch the reapings, but I'd bet money she was a volunteer.

Katniss finally spots me from her chariot in the back of the room and gives me a small wave. I smile and wave back, but as she goes to step toward me, we are all ushered on to our chariots. Blight appears from around the other side of the horse and helps me get into mine. I tuck Finnick's sugar cube into my dress and grip the brass bar tightly, looking straight ahead as I watch the other chariots enter the stage.

Blight climbs in beside me and takes my hand. I look down at our clasped hands, then back up at him. "Holding hands?"

"We're a team," he responds without a beat. "I want Snow to know it. I want him to _hate_ it."

I could kiss Blight I'm so into his quiet rage right now. Our horses take off and we are thrust into the arena for a loud applause. We stand firm, one hand on the bar, the other grasping each other. I don't even lift my head as our carriage passes Snow. I stare straight at the audience from beneath my miles of eyeliner: I'm angry.

When we dismount the chariot in the center, I can hear the thunderous applause for Katniss and I can't help the smile on my lips. I'm sure it boils Snow's blood to know that they love her so much and there's nothing he can do about it. I mean, he did put her in the arena, but she's got at least two of us protecting her, so who cares? She's going to win. We're going to make him pay for it.

The other victors stare on in jealousy, especially the girls from One and Two. "Cashmere and Enobaria," Blight whispers in my ear as he watches me glare daggers in their direction. "That's going to be our real competition. Because no matter what we do in front of the Gamemakers, you and Katniss are going to get big numbers. And those ladies are going to hunt you."

"Let them," I sneer, turning to face him. "Let them fucking try. I'll rip their throats out." We make our way to the elevators and right on our heels is Haymitch, Katniss and the tributes from Eleven - Seeder and Chaff.

Seeder embraces me tightly first, then Katniss, while I watch with wide eyes. And then I realize - Rue. "The families?"

Chaff nods. "Alive."

I let out a sigh of relief. The doors open at Seven first and Blight steps between everyone to exit. "How about a drink, Haymitch? Seeder, Chaff? For old times' sake?" They nod and slowly shuffle off the elevator. I go to step off and Blight looks behind me. "Oh, Johanna, you dropped your hair tie on the floor." As I turn around to inspect for the tie, I hear the doors close. I touch my hair where the green ribbon is still firmly tied in my intricate ponytail.

That motherfucker. Now I'm rethinking my strategy to keep him as an ally.

Katniss and I are alone in the elevator, rapidly ascending to the twelfth floor. Katniss fights to suppress a smile and I glare over at her. "Something funny, Twelve?"

She sighs and steps off the elevator at her floor, standing in between the platform and the floor. She looks to the ground, then up at me. "Do you want to come in for a little bit? If I know Haymitch your floor is going to be a disaster for a while."

"Agreed," I respond, annoyed. I follow Katniss through their floor - which looks just like mine but with different Avoxes - and into her bedroom.

I punch in some numbers on Katniss' closet to retrieve a long-sleeved thermal shirt and a pair of sweatpants. I toss the garments over my arm and go to the bathroom to change when I see Katniss awkwardly trying to unzip herself. After a few failed attempts - and probably a pulled muscle - she sighs in frustration.

With a grin I walk over to her, tossing my clothes on the bed beside us. "Want some help?" I offer, in what I hope is a genuine voice. Katniss flashes me a brief, small smile and nods. I place my hand on her costume, still glowing faintly from the fire Cinna had somehow worked in there, and slowly unzip the back of her top. I swallow as I see the freshly exposed sweaty skin of her back. She moves her arms back and forth, enjoying the freedom from the binding material of the flaming corset. I watch her back muscles ripple as she does so, and without thinking, I place my fingertips along the taut tendons. I feel her shudder as I drag my fingertips down her back.

My breath is caught in my throat when she peers over her shoulder at me. She looks so vulnerable, so innocent and yet, there's a desire in her hooded eyes that causes a coiling sensation in my belly. When I look at her I feel like I could not see her for a hundred years and still, when her eyes meet mine, feel the heat the same way I do now.

"Johanna," she breathes and I immediately back away from her. The way she's looking at me, the way she's saying my name, I can't deal with it. Eventually she's going to have to kill me because they are not going to put any nightlock in the arena again, that's for sure. And it will be easier for her if she thinks I hate her. Or at least, that I'm not thinking of disrobing her and finding out what it feels like to be inside her. Which I am.

"I - I'm gonna go change." I stammer my words out clumsily, backing away and retreating into the bathroom. I change out of my garish costume, leaving it in a pile on the cold tile floor. After getting settled into the sleeping clothes, I begin to wipe away the make-up from my face. I remove the false eyelashes, tossing them in the garbage next to the sink.

As I stare at myself in the mirror, I try to remove the blush from my cheeks by sheer force of will, which doesn't work. I splash some water on my face, rubbing the cold liquid into my skin. I blot my face with the soft towel as I exit the room, where I find Katniss has already dressed in her sleeping clothes and is sitting under her blankets, facing the bathroom.

"Was everything okay in there? You took a while." I nod.

"There's another bedroom, right? Usually a few rooms per floor. I'll just make myself at home there. Thanks for letting me sleep up here." I cross her room to the door, and as I reach the doorknob, she calls to me.

_Tell me to stay. _"Good night, Johanna."

And if your heart could make a noise when it broke, mine would have been heard over the roar of a Capitol crowd. "Good night, Katniss."

* * *

We do our training separately, practically avoiding each other as much as possible. I watch her at the fire station with Nuts and Volts - Beetee and Wiress from District Three. I'm distracted at the knot-tying station as I become engrossed watching her start a fire and gazing at her lips as she talks. I don't notice someone sidle up next to me, or how I've tied both my hands together.

I hear a soft chuckle that breaks my focus and I look at my hands, then up at the perpetrator. "Finnick."

"Distraction is death," he says, untangling my hands from the knot I've gotten them into. Slowly he unravels the coil, then expertly works it into a tiny snare.

"Thanks for the sound bite," I reply sarcastically, raising my eyebrow at him. He chuckles, then shows me slowly how he made the snare he made. I watch him move his hands through the rope with such expert precision it's almost breathtaking. He even turns the snare into a tight net, which I imagine wouldn't even let water through. "Where's your partner?"

As I ask, a tiny little grey woman appears from behind Finnick's large physique. She gives me a little wave. "Johanna, this is Mags. Mags, Johanna."

"Nice to meet you." The woman nods and mumbles something I can't understand, so I just smile and bob my head along with hers. I give Finnick a look and depart from the knot station, making my way to the knife-throwing instructor.

I've never been all that good throwing knives. Throwing axes, sure, I can do that like it's my job, but knives are harder to handle. Cashmere and Gloss are there, doing some tandem knife-throwing exercises to show off. I step up to them and busy myself with the instructor. He shows me a few pointers on the basics of knife-throwing and I start tossing them at the targets.

Brutus, the gargantuan tribute from Two, calls Gloss over to the sword station and he leaves, leaving me alone with his sister. She gives me a quick smile, one that looks somewhat genuine, and tosses another knife at the wall. "You're Johanna, right? Seven?"

"Yup," I confirm, gripping the handle of my knife in my hand. It feels strange to have such a small weapon, but I've seen it take down many people. Especially when it's wielded by someone like Cashmere or her brother. "Is this your thing? Knives?"

She nods. "Basically won my Games with them. You want me to show you?" I look at the instructor, who looks uncomfortable at our camaraderie but isn't about to stop us. I smirk at her, and it's returned in full.

Cashmere shows me how she was taught to throw knives. I show her the ins and outs of using an ax. I'm actually having a really good time, so much so that I forgot Katniss is even in the training room. (Blight doesn't bother to show up for training today; I think he's still hungover from his party.) The blonde and I go into the virtual training room where she uses an ax and I use knives to take down the orange cube enemies they throw at us.

I'm worked into a sweat by the time we're done and I turn to her and she lifts her hand up. I can't help but laugh as I give her a high five, and when we turn to leave we see all the tributes staring at us through the glass door. I wipe my sweat with my forearm and look directly at Katniss: she's pissed. More than that, she looks jealous. I guess I can understand that, being as how I've bonded with another tribute. Another tribute who happens to looks like what I imagine ancient goddesses might look like if they were real - blonde, muscular, beautiful.

As we exit the room Cashmere puts the training ax on to a rack on the wall, then turns and places her back against it, crossing her arms. "You're gonna be allies with Katniss, right?"

"Right. And Blight."

"Well, if you guys team up with me and Gloss, we can take down Eno and Brutus, and probably everyone else before we have to split. I mean, no promises or anything but I can convince Gloss. He's an idiot anyway." I chuckle at her profile of her brother, and I can't disagree. He always fell into the "meathead" category for me. Though Cashmere's not much brighter, she can certainly see talent.

"Why should I trust you?" I inquire with a raised eyebrow. Cashmere lifts up the corner of her mouth, shrugging her shoulders.

"You shouldn't. But I can at least give you a promise that I won't kill your girlfriend until I've killed you first."

A reasonable enough offer between two killers. Something about this girl makes me think she's for real. I think I'm a fairly good judge of character and I get people. All I know of Cashmere is she won about ten years ago when I was little, and her brother won the year before. The District One tributes are always so gorgeous and tall, pompous and insufferable, too. Gloss and Cashmere are no exception, but something in her sparkling emerald green eyes makes me believe she will honor this deal.

I bit against my bottom lip, darting my tongue out to sweep across it as I stand in front of her. I take one of her blonde curls and twirl it around my finger. "Looks like you've got yourself an ally, blondie." I wink at her but she is unimpressed and rolls her eyes, scoffing at me as I leave the hallway.

...

"Are you crazy?" Blight blurts out during dinner, when I tell him of our new alliance with One. "They'll kill us the second Templesmith announces the start!"

"Calm down," I reply exasperatedly, digging into my stew. "We will align with them until everyone else is dead. Then we'll go our separate ways and kill them. Who would you rather ally with, fucking Nuts and Volts?"

Blight glares at me. "Wiress and Beetee are brilliant. Yes, I'd rather be surrounded by two geniuses than two blood-thirsty killers."

"_I'm _a blood-thirsty killer, do you want to not align with me?"

"Johanna, don't be so fucking stubborn."

"No can do."

He sighs. "Katniss will never agree to this. She wants Beetee, Wiress and Mags."

I drop my spoon into my bowl, slowly turning my head to face him. "Are you fucking kidding me? Does she just want to die?"

He shrugs. "That's who she chose. Haymitch told me. If you want to get her out alive, we're going to have to get them."

"No, _we _do not. But I know someone who will." I pause. "Finnick. He approached me at the knot-tying station today. If he wants an ally, then he can take care of Nuts and Volts. We can use Cashmere and Gloss to protect Katniss."

"And when everyone is dead, and we show that we've been duplicitous in our alliances, what happens? Cashmere and Gloss will kill all of us."

I pat his head as I get up from the table. "Not if we kill them first."

* * *

**A/N: I'm noooot entirely thrilled with this chapter. I'm going to go about the QQ differently than the books and all my other fics, if not simply because I have a crush on Cashmere and wanted to use her more. ;) I mean, have you _seen _Stephanie Leigh Schlund? I mean I know you guys have, because you've seen Catching Fire, but like have you really _looked _at her? She's like a fucking Greek goddess, my god. Anyway, blah blah, back to the story.**

**Thanks for the wonderfully supportive reviews and new follows! I've given hugs and chocolates so today's not-real reward is cake. Any kind of cake. Chocolate, vanilla, ice cream, coconut. And I swear on all that is good and pure and Joniss-y that I will get our favorite ladies together. Please be patient with me. :)**


	9. I carry her with me always

During the next few days of training, I barely see Katniss. She's avoiding me like I have the black death. I manage to make friends with Finnick and he agrees to take care of Beetee and Wiress if we get separated. At our last lunch I sit with Gloss and Cashmere, but he leaves as I sit down, giving me a sneer.

I look at Cashmere, dropping my tray onto the table. "The fuck is his problem?"

She rolls her eyes, shaking her head as she takes a bite of her sandwich. "When he was born fate gave him only one head that works and it's not the one you can see." I laugh as I take drink of water. "He's not exactly thrilled with my choice of allies."

I let out a loud scoff. "Oh really? Well let him know I can either kill him first, or he can watch me kill you. And then I'll kill him. His choice," I snarl at her, taking a rather aggressive bite of my sandwich.

Cashmere laughs, pointing her sandwich half at me. "I knew I liked you, Mason."

"If it's any consolation, Blight doesn't trust either of you as well. And don't even talk about Katniss. I think she's ready to slit _my_ throat because of yesterday."

The blonde-haired beauty rolls her eyes. "Jealousy can be an ugly bitch."

"Hey," I warn.

Cashmere smirks. She tosses her blonde curls behind her shoulder, looking over me. "The rebels take her for a hero. The _mockingjay_," she mocks in a scandalized voice. She scoffs. "She's just some girl. No different than any other girl."

"I'm sure that's what Glimmer and Marvel thought, too," I remind, watching her green eyes sparkle with indignation.

She stays silent for a few moments, scrutinizing me with her intense stare. "You know, I never understood this whole lovers thing. I watched your Games - I mean, I mentored Glimmer and Marvel so I had to, but I never understood you and Katniss. It seems like an odd fit."

I raise my eyebrow in challenge. "Because we're girls?"

Cashmere laughs, flicking her wrist in a dismissive manner. "Oh please. I've been working in the Capitol long enough to know that life is too short to choose genders." My other eyebrow joins the other near my hairline. "Does this surprise you? I always pegged the other one to be the prude."

"I guess not. I never really thought about the sexual appetites of victors."

She snorts. "You would if you had been a victor long enough." Her eyes go up to the windows where the high sun is streaming through. A girl like Cashmere could have the pick of any man - or woman if she was inclined - but she didn't marry. Neither did Gloss. There is a tinge of sadness to her words that takes me by surprise. I think she senses my thoughts and I can see her put on a facade of indifference. "Anyway, what I meant was here is this simple girl from the Seam, basically the _bowels_ of Panem. Nothing too special, pretty enough and decent with a bow. But you, you were like a tour de force. Aligning with Peeta to get Katniss her bow, taking down both tributes from Two? And girl, you know your way around an ax. You could have had your pick of anyone in the Capitol, or in Panem, had you not been so grossly lovesick over her. Even when she _clearly_ didn't feel the same way."

The hurt that I know is etched into my features I try to cover up with a smirk. "As if I'm going to sit here and discuss my love life with you."

"C'mon, your love life is big news. It's all anyone talked about all damn year," she complains, but it doesn't reach her eyes. Our little affair amused her. "It was dreadful. Everywhere you went - 'have you heard about Katniss and Johanna'? 'The ax and the arrow' they called you. It was precious, really," she says flatly, taking a sip from her mug of coffee.

"Fuck you."

"Mm, I bet you'd like to, but unfortunately we all know your heart belongs to the martyr from Twelve," she says with a grimace and a mocking tilt of her head. She stands from the table, walking around to my side. She places one hand on the back of my chair, the other on the table and leans into my ear. "But if you change your mind about waiting for your little princess, you know what floor I'm on."

I can't suppress the shudder in my body from the heat of her breath against my ear. She knows it too, and puts an extra sway in her step as she walks away. _Bitch_. I leave my tray and the remainder of my sandwich and start toward the door. I can feel eyes on me, so I turn my head and see Katniss watching me. To her, it must look like I'm following after Cashmere.

Good. This jealousy and misguided anger will help her send that last arrow into my heart. Before I can leave Finnick Odair appears before me, shaking his head. "Where you off to?"

I raise my eyebrow. "Who wants to know?"

"If we're going to be allies we have to trust each other, right?" He gives me that dimpled smile that is so famous across Panem, but it has no effect on me other than being irritating.

"So, what? You wanna braid my hair and tell each other secrets?" I bristle, pursing my lips.

Finnick laughs, a real, hearty laugh that makes me smile. "No, nothing like that. Just... a little friendly advice. Don't get too chummy with the Careers. Cashmere has more in common with Enobaria than she does with you. Remember who the real enemy is."

I pat him on the shoulder. "Thanks. Why don't you just keep up your end of the bargain and we'll see what happens, okay?" I brush passed him, skipping the rest of training in favor of taking a nap in my room.

...

I awaken later that evening to a rapping at my door. "Go away, Desiree," I groan, pulling my pillow out from underneath my head and placing it over my face. I hear the door open and the sound of soft footsteps coming closer to my bed. "I said -" I'm cut off as I remove the pillow from my face and see that it's Katniss standing next to the bed, not my escort. She looks particularly miserable; faint bags under her eyes, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, her shirt looks like she's been sleeping in it for days.

Somehow I still find her beautiful. Go figure.

"Hey," she greets in a small voice. I don't answer her, I just let a pregnant pause fill between us as she darts her eyes nervously from the bed, to my face, to the floor. "Sorry to bother you. I just thought we should go over how we're going to present ourselves tonight."

"My game is the same." She looks at me briefly as I scoot myself up and prop my back against my headboard. "Look I don't wanna talk about this all night so here it is. I'm getting you out of that arena. I swore to Peeta that I would protect you, and I plan on keeping that promise. No, let me finish." Katniss opens her mouth to protest but quickly clamps it shut. "I know that the past few weeks have been ...difficult... but the only thing I want to do is protect you, all right? So everything I've done since I got on the stupid train is for that purpose. Tonight is no different."

Katniss seems faraway as she registers my words. She presses one knee on the bed, then swings her leg over my straightened out legs, straddling my pelvis. Both of her hands run their fingers through my hair above my ear, and as I watch her eyes watch me, I see wetness appear in the corners. She leans forward and my breath catches in my throat, her forehead pressing against mine. "I don't want to lose you." Her breath passes over my dry lips, so I lick them slowly.

A small smile plays on my mouth as I place my hands on her hips. "You won't."

We sit on the bed in silence for what seems like years. Her grey eyes boring holes into my irises with their intensity, her hands resting over my shoulders. The heat from her body is making my mind fuzzy, like I've been downing hot cider for hours. "Can I stay with you tonight?" she finally asks in a childlike whisper, and there's really no other answer I can give.

"Yes."

* * *

I find Katniss, Haymitch and Blight near the side of the stage, chatting amongst themselves. Katniss is dressed in a pale pink gown, but her make-up is rather dark - deep eyeliner with long wings, gold eyeshadow that flickers off every shimmer of the diamonds laced into the fabric of her dress. I'm in a gold dress with a high collar, my hair pulled up into a bun. I've got long gold false eyelashes that I can see when I blink, but a quick look in the mirror before I came on indicated that it wasn't a bad look. I matched Katniss, and I looked fierce.

As I approach, Haymitch and Blight excuse themselves and walk off toward another circle of victors, leaving Katniss standing there awkwardly by herself. I quicken my pace, then I see Cashmere and Gloss emerge from around a set piece, looking stunning. He's wearing a tight-fitting silver suit, gems in his hair and on his face. She's in a shimmering silver gown, her hair glittering in the lights.

"So they decided to dress you like a six-year-old again," Cashmere notes with a smirk, placing her hand on her brother's shoulder. Her green eyes flick to me, then back to Katniss. "Don't you look cute?" As I get closer Gloss mumbles something and detaches himself from Cashmere, whose confidence falters for a moment as she watches him walk away. She returns her stare to me, advancing toward me as I cross to them. She stops next to me, leaning into my ear. "If you're ready to stop playing in the sandbox, my door's open, Mason," she drawls, running her hand down my arm as she leaves Katniss and I alone.

She walks away and I stare after her, shaking my head. When I return my attention to Katniss she looks deeply hurt, amidst a small storm of anger and jealousy. "Don't pay her any attention. She's just a bitch." I can see Katniss looking at her own dress self-consciously and I take her by each of her hands. "You look beautiful. Every single person in that audience is going to be very, _very_ jealous of me tonight."

She looks away embarrassedly, but a smile comes on her features. "And if you give them that smile, they're gonna go nuts." I kiss her cheek, giving her hands another squeeze before I lock arms with Blight and we usher ourselves on to the stage.

...

The interviews go very well; mine is mostly about Katniss and I, at how unfortunate our situation is. All the other victors are smart in how they present their anger. As if there was something the Capitol could do for us, like canceling the Games. When it's Katniss' turn, finally, she steals the show.

Her girlish dress transforms into a mockingjay, complete with burning wings and a charcoal black color. The crowd goes wild for a full minute of her three-minute time, until Caesar finally manages to calm them down. I watch with a permanent smirk on my face. Katniss is so confident, so engaging, that she's like watching an entirely different person.

Her banter with Caesar is easy, until he begins a line of questioning about me. "How has this affected your relationship with Johanna? Has it been hard?"

"More than you know," Katniss replies sadly. "Every time I see her it feels like a fresh hurt." I'm humbled by her words; I know she doesn't mean because of the Quarter Quell. My mind flashes back to when I told her to leave in my house and how deeply wounded I felt. I recall how hurt she looked, like I had slit her sister's throat in front of her. All of that because I was so blinded by jealousy at the mention of Gale.

I can be a real fucking idiot sometimes.

Caesar winces in imaginary pain, placing his hand on Katniss' thigh. "I'm so sorry, Katniss."

She nods, looking back at me briefly before returning her eyes to him. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore really," she trails off sadly. "But I carry her with me always."

Caesar does the big good-bye to Katniss who slowly makes her way to her seat. We all stand in unison, hearing the crowd cheering loudly for us. Blight takes me hand and thrusts it upward, and I feel my other hand get grabbed by Woof. Down the line, one by one, everyone takes hands and puts them up in the single biggest show of solidarity of I've ever seen in victors or tributes.

The lights cut out to a bunch of shocked screams, and I feel Blight pull me off the stage. The backstage area is pitch black, and I'm unable to see my hand in front of my face. My grip on Blight is broken, and though I can hear his shouts for me, I can't find him. Finally another hand clasps mine, a soft, female hand, and leads me toward what I hope are the elevators.

It's not. It's the area beneath the stage. As I gather my wits and wrench my hand away, I find them both grabbed and pinned above my head, my body shoved backward against the wall. "What the fuck?"

The thick smell of perfume floats into my nose as the person holding me - with superior strength to mine, I'm upset to find out - leans in close to my ear. Her lips scrape against my neck as she speaks. "Party. My floor. Bring your girlfriend if you want, but I doubt it's gonna be her scene."

Now I recognize the voice: Cashmere. Who else would have the gall to pin me against a wall against my will? "What makes you think I'm interested?" I ask, cursing myself internally for sounding so breathless.

I can't see her, only a few flashes of blonde hair and the glint of green eyes as the lights flicker on for a split second, but I know she's smirking. Her mouth ghosts over my jaw until her face is hovering over mine. "Because you're not even _struggling_, Mason. If you're this easy to get now, maybe I should rethink that alliance."

"Fuck off," I manage, my voice husky from barely restrained desire. It's just a matter of time before the lights come back on and this isn't exactly how I want to be seen. We'd probably be in trouble, and if Katniss saw...

The thought is enough motivation for me to slip my hands from within her grasp. In a swift movement I grab her wrists and spin her around, forcing the upper hand by pinning her to the wall. I hear her gasp in surprise, and another flicker of the lights shows me the catlike grin on her features. I lean as close as I can, feeling the slightly tacky surface of her lips from her lipstick as I speak. "Tell your friends from Two I'm coming for them first."

With that I let her go, making my way to where I hear the most voices. By the time I find the elevators I see Katniss waiting patiently for one, the lights back on above our heads. Her eyes look around until they rest on mine. I can't help the dorky smile on my lips that occurs when I see her eyes light up as we lock gazes. It sends a warm rush through my body that no stupidly pretty girl from One could ever hope to match.

Wordlessly I slip my hand into hers as we wait for the elevator. The ride is silent. Everything is silent. We get off on my floor, going into my room and changing (separately) into pajamas. Free of make-up and costumes, I drink in the sight of the girl curled in my bed. Effortlessly gorgeous with her olive-toned skin, devastating grey eyes, tousled brown hair, and those pink lips that send a shudder down my spine.

"Why are you staring at me?" she says finally, quietly, as I stand next to the bed. Her words startle me from my reverie and I shake my head, my own dark fringe bouncing against my cheeks. I slide myself under the covers, placing my hand underneath my pillow. We face each other, her nose just an inch or two away from mine.

We stare at each other for a long while. Eventually I see her eyes get droopy and she shuffles on to her other side. I move my head to her pillow and wrap my arm tightly around her waist. I nuzzle my face into the back of her neck, breathing in her smell in long breaths. She tangles our fingers together, pressing them against her stomach.

"Johanna?" she calls softly into the darkness. "Are you still awake?"

_Yes. The feeling of your body pressed against mine is probably going to keep me up all night_. "Yes."

"Do you hate me?"

A pause. "No."

Katniss slowly turns over, adjusting herself so my arm is wrapped around her back, and hers around mine. She tilts her head up, pressing her soft lips against mine. My breath is stolen immediately, my eyes fluttering closed on their own accord. She raises her hand to my face, holding my head just behind my ear. Deliberately her tongue slides out of her mouth, sweeping over my lips and the gasp that pushes from my mouth allows her entrance.

I hear her whimper as I gently suck on her bottom lip, moving to deepen the kiss. I snake my hand beneath the material of her shirt, rubbing long lines up and down her back. Her back arches and her stomach presses against mine, creating a wonderful pressure against my body. I can feel the edge of heat seeping into our kiss while Katniss moves her body against mine, seeking some sort of touch. The warmth underneath the sheets is becoming stifling and I can feel sweat beginning to form on my body where she's pressed against me.

She pulls away from me, and in the waning moonlight I can see the full-blooded desire in her eyes. It makes my heart skip in my chest to know I put that lust in her eyes. Her breath is labored over my lips, her hand massaging the nape of my neck. It's hard to convey in just a kiss how much someone means to you, but we're trying. I need her to know how much she's not only loved, but _wanted_. My entire body is humming from her touch, as innocent as it is. It occurs to me with a painful pang in my heart that this may be the last time I get to hold her. I'll never get to feel the way all of her skin feels against all of mine. I won't get to hear what she sounds like in the throes of passion.

I could fight this rebellion alone for that thought only.

She kisses my jaw, the hollow of my throat, then the small dip before my collarbone as she settles her face against my chest. As the minutes pass on I hear her breathing become steady and shallow. The sound of her breathing and the warmth of her body is enough to finally make me fall asleep, too.

* * *

When we awaken Katniss departs wordlessly, going to her floor so she can get prepped for the arena. There's no need to say good-bye - I am going to see her in the arena. Blight and I dress in the jumpsuits they've laid out for us, and my prep team tearfully puts my hair back in a ponytail with Violet's ribbon. I tuck my pinecone necklace into the suit, and push Peeta's bracelet over my wrist.

As I stand on the platform, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I shoot upward, opening up in the middle of a large lake. I suppose it's more of an ocean because I can see waves, and in the distance, a beach. I look around and to my left I see Cashmere, and to my right, I see Finnick. They probably put Katniss out of sight on purpose.

He announces the start and I dive into the water. I wish I was a better swimmer. I swam in the lakes and rivers back home, but I'm no natural like I assume Finnick is. I'm sure even the Careers have been trained in swimming. I arrive on the cornucopia, grabbing the nearest backpack and dodging swipes from someone - I don't know who it is - until I finally find Katniss being pinned down by someone from Ten.

Before I can do anything Finnick appears from around the corner, kicking the guy off Katniss with his foot, then whipping his trident out to catch him in the stomach. I stare, dumbfounded, as he holds his hand out to Katniss. "Get up, we have to get off this island." I quickly grab the bow and quiver I see to my left and we finally find Mags.

"What about Beetee?" Katniss asks, "And Wiress?"

"We'll find them later," I say to her as we make our way off the island. Blight catches up with us, blood smattered on his face, when we reach the edge of the jungle. We stare at the thick trees, which look foreign even to me. Without another alternative, Blight takes the lead as we cut through the thick vines and venture deeper into the jungle.

...

By nightfall we haven't found any water, and I can tell Finnick is exhausted from carrying Mags, as light as she is. We make a small camp near the edge of the jungle, settling in and dividing up the small amount of loot we managed to snag from the arena. "Let's split up the watch. Finnick and I will take the first one, Blight and Katniss will take the second."

Everyone seems satisfied with my plan and they settle into their makeshift beds. After about an hour or two we hear the Capitol's trumpets and Finnick and I watch the skies for the fallen tributes. There's no names until the get to Five, where both tributes are dead. The male morphling, Cecilia from Eight, both tributes from Nine, the male from Ten that Finnick killed, and Chaff.

"Sixteen left," Finnick concludes softly, resting his elbows on his knees. "How reliable is your alliance with One?"

I shrug. "I have no idea." Finnick stares disapprovingly at me and I glare at him. "What do you want me to say? It's all fucked anyway, right? I didn't even see them at the bloodbath. All I know is that she swore to kill Enobaria and Brutus before they came after us. So if they're alive, we should be safe." A silence falls between us as we hear the loud thunder and lightning above our heads. No rain falls, but I can hear some falling in the distance. "Although maybe she'll kill me out of spite since I didn't go to her little party."

"What party?"

I look over at him. "I don't know. She cornered me after the lights went out and told me all the victors were having a party on her floor."

I can see how surprised he looks from my position several feet away. "I didn't hear about a party." A slow smirk spreads across his face as he pops one of the nuts Mags collected into his mouth. "Sounds like it was going to be a two person party."

I roll my eyes. "Or it was a set up. She knew I wouldn't come." That seems to settle the debate for now and Finnick and I keep watch until I start smelling something sweet. Sickly sweet. I lock eyes with Finnick and we look around, trying to pinpoint the source of the smell. Behind us, I can see a large fog cloud rolling over the leaves and slowly creeping toward us.

I get to my feet, brushing off my pants as I get closer to inspect the bizarre, uniform cloud. And when it hits my skin, I yelp loudly enough to wake up Katniss. My skin begins to burn and boil immediately. "Get up!" I scream, running back to the camp. Katniss and Blight groggily get to their feet. "The fog is poison!" is all I can say as we all begin to try and outrun the ominous cloud behind us.

We get about twelve feet in front of it when I hear a yell and a soft thud. I turn around and Blight is on the ground, his foot tangled in some vines. "Keep going!" he yells, trying to wrench his foot out. Finnick drops Mags softly on the ground and brandishes a knife. I think he's about to kill him, but then I see him tug on the strong green plant and try to saw him free.

"I can't!" he yells, and Blight pushes him away.

"Just go," my former mentor seethes through his teeth, and Finnick scoops up Mags like a backpack and continues running. Katniss stands in between the beach and Blight and I. I kneel down next to him, ignoring the searing pain in my arms as I try to wrench his foot out. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, Johanna. Go," he whispers, his legs jerking as the fog gobbles them up.

"I'm not leaving you." I tuck my arms under his shoulders and try to pull him, but he only screams in pain.

"GO!" he orders, and I stumble backward on to my backside. I slowly push myself backward as the fog envelopes him. I hear him whisper something, but I don't know what it is because Katniss is screaming behind me to move. I hear the cannon go off but my mind doesn't register what that means. I just know Blight is somewhere in that fog and I can't reach him. Katniss pulls me to my feet and we crash though the jungle, the fog right on our backs. We emerge on the beach and I collapse face-first into the sand.

Finnick dives into the water and stifles a groan, which I'm not sure to attribute to pain or pleasure. "It comes off," he chokes out, "in the water."

I hear my name being called over and over, but I can't respond. My mind is sluggish as I feel hands turn me over. Is this what death feels like? Like being dipped in syrup? Everything is moving so slowly, every sound muffled, every light dim. The last thing I hear as my eyes close is another cannon go off.

* * *

**A/N: :( I'll have the next chapter up shortly because I'm staying in on a Friday night during finals and there is no one else here. And if I leave my dorm I'll never get anything remotely productive done. (Obligatory hiiiiii to the new followers. The number currently stands at 69. Heh heh.) But you guys are all wicked awesome.**


	10. Hope is weird

Well I didn't die. I come to floating in the water, my ears dipped below the waves just as I loved as a child. As my eyelids flutter open I see the hot sun scorching the beach around me, making the water a tepid temperature that belies how dangerous my situation is. I realize my jumpsuit is missing as the water washes over my skin. If this was any other time, any other place, it would have been rather peaceful. It's funny how people have a knack for finding something positive in the worst of situations. Hope is weird.

I lift my hand out of the water and examine my arm - no blisters. In fact, my skin looks freshly exfoliated like it does after the prep team is through with me. As my eyelids flutter open my other senses begin to return to me. My sight is hazy, purpled from the sun. My hearing is good, though, and I become aware of a lot of yelling. I let my feet sink into the water and I slowly trudge my way to the beach. The scene I come upon is bizarre:

Cashmere, covered in blood, with two knives poised above her shoulder, ready to toss. Finnick with his trident over his shoulder, also aimed to kill. Katniss next to Finnick, her bow drawn. Beetee on the ground, attempting to clean blood off of his glasses and speaking calmly. Wiress is doing something insane; spinning in circles and repeating some words.

In my particularly defensless state - no weapons and barely any clothes aside from my floatation device and undergarments - I'm in no position to play peacemaker. But I realize this confusion is going to end in bloodshed if I don't intervene.

"Put the fucking bow down, _Twelve_," Cashmere yells. "Why the fuck would I show up on this beach with your friends if I wanted to kill you? If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead! I'm a fucking surgeon with this knife." She looks behind Katniss to Finnick. "Odair, you know better than this."

Finnick cants his head to the side. "You expect me to think you're going to honor a deal you made with Johanna? She's passed out. We should just kill you and take Beetee and Wiress ourselves! Why should we trust you?"

Cashmere lets out a long frustrated groan and grips her knives tighter. "Because if I wanted to kill you," she explains deliberately, like Katniss and Finnick are slow children, "I would have brought Enobaria and Brutus with me, along with the heads of these two idiots."

"Okay," I interject from the water, holding my hands out to either side. "Everyone calm down and put your weapons down."

"Are you okay?" Katniss asks, keeping her bow aimed on Cashmere, but her eyes are on me.

"I'm fine, put your bow down." I look to Cashmere. "Thanks for getting Nuts and Volts."

"You're welcome," she replies pointedly, glaring at Finnick and Katniss. "At least somebody shows some fucking gratitude in this arena." Finnick holds his trident at his side and Cashmere tucks her knives into her belt. I grab my jumpsuit, pulling it over my body and zipping it up. Katniss reluctantly shoulders her bow and walks toward me.

"Feeling better?" she asks softly, inspecting the parts of my skin that's still exposed.

I smile at her, running my fingers through her damp hair. "I'm fine, thanks to you." She smiles back at me, but it fades as Cashmere approaches us. I take in the blonde's blood-soaked appearance with a grimace. "What happened to you?"

Cashmere strips her uniform off and dives into the water, sputtering as she comes up. She washes the blood from her hair as best she can with the seawater while I sit on the edge of the beach and wring out her uniform. I try my best not to stare, but we both know I will. My heart is with Katniss, but my eyeballs are still in my head, you know? "I was finding your friends since I saw Finnick take off with you two," she explains angrily. Finnick appears by our side, helping Beetee into the water to wash him off as well. She glares at him, then returns her glistening green eyes to me.

I hadn't noticed before, but Finnick looks like he's been crying. His own sea-foam green eyes are rimmed in red. It suddenly dawns on me that Mags isn't around, either. "Mags?" I ask toward Finnick, who shakes his head. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry about Blight," he responds. I feel the tugging in my heart, but like everyone else, I don't want to talk about it. There's a time for grief, and I don't think any of us are going to live long enough to have that time.

"And Gloss?" I ask toward Cashmere, who is pulling her uniform on in the water. She looks at me, hurt.

"He -" Beetee starts.

"He died in the blood rain," she interrupts. Beetee looks at her over his glasses, his eyes narrowed. She shoots him a glare and he returns his attention to Finnick. "He ran into the force field when I was getting those idiots out of the rain."

"I'm sorry."

She grunts and shakes her head, pulling her head underwater another time until I think she's going to drown herself. She pops up finally, shaking the water from her ears. "Good, glad we're all sorry for each other. Now who's got a plan because we've got Enobaria, Brutus and at least two more people to kill before we turn on each other."

I'll give it to her, she's probably the only person in Panem who takes less shit than I do. I don't know how someone who was brought up suckling the Capitol's teat could be rebellious, but I like it. Beetee points toward the cornucopia. "I think it best if we go to the cornucopia and gather some weapons. There's some wire there that I could make use of."

"How do you know?" I ask, bending down to pick up Cashmere's knives that had fallen off when she had disrobed. She flashes me an appreciative smile, which I return as I hand them to her. I feel Katniss slip her arm around mine and my smile turns into a smirk. The possessive maneuver is not lost on Cashmere who chuckles and shakes her head.

"Because I invented it," Beetee explains.

"All right. We can stock up before the Careers come back," Cashmere replies, making her way toward the corncucopia.

Finnick laughs. "Well look who's talking about Careers like she isn't one? Have you turned into a rebel, Cash? Has Johanna been a bad influence on you?" Finnick continues to giggle at Cashmere's expense, and I feel like had we not agreed to a ceasefire, the blonde would have thrown a knife directly into his throat.

She turns around as we walk, sticking her tongue into her cheek and glaring at him. "Oh shut the fuck up, Odair."

"Touchy touchy," he replies with a smirk.

"Why _are_ you doing this?" Katniss asks pointedly, grabbing a small pouch of food as we collect weapons from the cornucopia. "You could have easily just gone with Enobaria and Brutus and probably have killed us all by now."

I walk into the horn to grab the axes I had seen around the first time, and smile with glee as I twirl it in my hands. "My motives are my problem, not yours, kid," Cashmere replies snidely, tucking two more knives into her belt.

"Oookay," Katniss drawls, rolling her eyes and stocking a few more arrows into her quiver. Beetee finally finds his coil of wire and as he emerges from the cornucopia, his look of triumph is dashed as the rock we're on begins to spin. I see him fall, grasping for his coil as his body goes tumbling into the water. I lose my balance as well, skipping down the rocks until I find one large enough to hold on to.

I turn my head to try and find the others, but I can see is the flash of blonde hair through the maelstrom of water the spinning has created. After what feels like ten minutes, it finally stops. A cannon blasts. I scramble to my feet and look around. My heart sinks in my chest as I count. Three. Only Finnick, Cashmere and I are still standing, and I can see Beetee bobbing in the water. The panic rising inside my chest is so thick I don't hear Cashmere as she shouts at Finnick. He dives into the water fluidly, and a few moments later comes up with Katniss under his arm.

Cashmere helps pull her out of the water as I rush to her side. The blonde backs away as I turn Katniss over, pushing her hair out of her face. "Are you okay?" I look down at her arm, which is a bloody mess. "Fuck, what happened?" Katniss looks down at her arm confusedly, then up at me.

"I must have snagged a rock or something." Beetee rushes over with some gauze from the horn and tenderly I wrap her wound. I catch Katniss eyeing me strangely as I wrap the gauze around her wound and I raise my eyebrow. Slowly she reaches up her hand, wiping away the tears that somehow managed to escape my eyes without my notice or my permission. I blush embarrassingly and Katniss smiles at me. "Softie."

I let out an indignant huff and then kiss her chastely on the lips. "Let's get off this stinking island," I say, helping Katniss to her feet. As we make our way back to the beach, it dawns on me who the cannon was for: Wiress. She must've drowned when the island was spinning. A look over my shoulder at Beetee's despondent face as he carries the hefty wire confirms what I thought.

I look at the jungle before us. One part is fog, another part blood rain. I don't know how they lost Mags, but I assume it was from something else deadly in the arena that I was out for. "Anyone got a good gut feeling?" I ask, looking around at the tired tributes I've allied myself with.

"Let's find them and kill them," Cashmere says lowly, looking around at everyone. I raise my eyebrow at her. "It's what, at least four trained killers against two? The others - the girl from ten, the morphling, Seeder, let them sort each other out. They're not threats. Then once that's all finished, we all separate. And let the best man win."

The plan is as good as we're going to get, unfortunately. A shrill scream from across the lake makes us all turn our heads. A hovercraft appears from the cloudless sky, and picks up the remains of what I think is the morphling, but I'm not sure. Her body is so torn up it's hard to even tell it's human. "Probably safe to say we should not go that way," Katniss says, grimacing at the sight.

"Good call, Twelve," Cashmere says absent-mindedly.

"All right, well you'd know them best, right? Where do you think we'll find them?" Finnick asks, forking his trident into the sand and leaning his elbow on it.

The blonde sighs and looks around at the arena. "Well they'll need to eat. And if I know them, they won't know how to hunt like you guys. They'll need to come back here and get stocked up."

"So your plan is to have us wait on the beach like sitting ducks?" Katniss asks, an edge in her voice I've never heard before. I have to bite my lower lip to prevent myself from smiling. I like jealous, snarky Katniss. I almost wish all of us could make it out just so I could keep Cashmere around for that purpose alone.

"No, idiot, I'm saying we lay in hiding until they come out to get food, and then we sneak up on them. Brutus is strong, but he's not fast. Enobaria is fast _and _strong, so she'll put up much more of a fight." Cashmere slowly walks toward us, canting her head to the side. "Don't let her too close to you, or you might lose your precious neck."

My body naturally steps in between the two of them and Cashmere shoots me a look at screams, 'Really?' and she walks away. I look over my shoulder at Katniss who gives me a small smile. Finnick goes to the water to collect some oysters for us while Beetee, Katniss and I begin making a small camp just on the edge of one of the jungles. The blood rain jungle, if I remember correctly.

Once we've all eaten, I volunteer to take the first watch to let the rest of them have some sleep. Katniss declines, claiming to be too wired to sleep. Cashmere doesn't trust us, so she and Katniss stay up for the first watch. I settle myself down next to Finnick and attempt to sleep, but it never comes.

Instead I stay up, listening to them talk, eyes closed. I try to steady my breathing as must as possible. They don't speak for a while, nearly an hour, until Cashmere retrieves something for Katniss, probably water, and settles down next to her. "You know this is probably the first time someone from One has been in an alliance with someone from Twelve."

Cashmere chuckles. "You're probably right. I mean, except for Peeta in the first part of your Games," she reminds. I can't see them, but I'm sure there's a look of pain on Katniss' face. Silence falls between them before the blonde speaks again. "But I think I'm probably the first 'Career' to defect."

There is a long silence between them, punctuated only by the occasional squawk of a jabberjay, the soft crash of the waves, or the quiet snore of the boy from Four sleeping next to me. "I'm sorry about your brother," Katniss says softly.

"Thanks. He wasn't too bright, but he was family," she explains ruefully. "But these are the hunger games," she adds pragmatically, "that kind of thing happens." Another long silence falls between the two girls. "You're lucky to have Johanna."

"I know," Katniss replies softly.

"And she's lucky to have you. Nothing in this world is ever forever, so the fact that you guys have each other in all this, that's pretty cool. It's nice to have someone to understands, who loves you."

I can hear the sadness behind her voice and I'm sure Katniss can too. I'm certain when Katniss asks her if she volunteered. "No," she says. "Gloss and I were picked at random. There wasn't even time for anyone to volunteer for us."

"That sounds vaguely suspicious," Katniss replies. "Picking two siblings. Probably the only two living... sorry."

"It's okay."

"The only two living siblings who are victors. Sounds contrived."

I hear Cashmere sigh. "You're probably right. That's what I thought, too. Gloss didn't care, though. He likes the Games. Our parents were victors, too. They pretty much insisted we volunteer by sixteen if we weren't picked before then. Gloss got picked first, and then when he won, I knew I had to volunteer the next year."

"You didn't want to?"

"I guess I did. Family tradition," she derides with a scoff. "The family tradition of murdering people." Another long pause. "I just never thought I'd have to do this again."

I fall asleep sometime after that, lulled into dreams by the soft crashing of the waves. I'm awoken a few hours later by the sound of Capitol trumpets, and I turn on my back and stare up at the sky as they flash the faces of the fallen victors. A slow day for the Capitol, I'm sure. I don't know what fresh hell they have prepared for us, but it's only a few hours away.

I manage to wake up Finnick, who mumbles 'Annie' sleepily as he registers where we are with a frown. The other two girls settle into where we had slept, sleeping coming easily for both of them. Beetee is awake now as well, fiddling with his wire. "So what's your plan, Volts?"

Beetee sighs, his gaze darting from Finnick to me slowly. "Well I was going to say we electrify the beach to eliminate the Careers, but I imagine Cashmere's plan will have more success. Less variables to consider."

Finnick looks over at me. "What's _your _plan, Mason? After we kill them? Take off with Katniss and leave us?"

I hike my eyebrow. "As opposed to what? Waiting around for Cashmere to slit all our throats?"

Beetee clears his throat. "I have an alternate plan." The way Finnick looks at him, eyes wide, makes me squint in confusion and suspicion. He looks at Finnick knowingly. "But I can't exactly tell you. I can only show you."

"And I should trust you why? You've spent enough time with blondie, maybe she convinced you she'd protect you if you helped kill us all."

Beetee considers this for a moment, but gives me the look my father would give me when I was particularly petulant. Which was fairly often. "I know any one of you could kill me. I'm not in any position to be trying to trick anyone. The only person I was going to protect was Wiress. But she's gone. So now I just have to hope that you're willing to trust me. Even if you don't, I could show you my plan and you could kill me anyway, correct? So what's the harm in taking a gamble?"

I let his reasoning settle in. I almost wish Peeta were there because he was a better judge of character than me. Absent-mindedly I twirl his bracelet with my fingers, hoping some of his people skills would guide me in this situation. It doesn't of course, so I'm forced to rely on my own perceptions. Beetee projects the comfortable confidence that comes with someone who knows he's the smartest guy in the room. Just like Finnick's is usually from knowing he's the most attractive guy in the room.

"C'mon, Johanna," Finnick goads, "you're willing to trust Cashmere but not Beetee?"

I snort. "I trust her because I understand her. I don't understand half the shit that comes out of his mouth," I say, giving Beetee a smile. He chuckles and shrugs. "Okay. After we kill them, we'll do your plan."

* * *

Cashmere is a hard sell, but Katniss agrees readily to our agreement. It doesn't take long for Cashmere's assumption to materialize; a cannon goes off in the meantime, but then we see Enobaria and Brutus running for the cornucopia. Finnick stays back with Beetee for protection, and Cashmere, Katniss and I slowly make our way toward the golden horn.

I can hear them talking amongst themselves as we get closer. I know they're going to be armed to the teeth when we approach, and I swing my ax in preparation. When we finally come upon them inside the horn Brutus is bent over, picking through one of the larger pouches of food. Before we can attack Enobaria sees us.

"Shit!" she yells, and Brutus turns around. She unsheathes a sword and begins running at us, Brutus on her heels. I dodge a swipe of Brutus' comically short knife, pulling my ax down. I bury the blade in his shoulder, kicking his stomach and pulling him off of it. Somehow he manages to get up again, and I'm taken by such surprise I can't even defend myself as his knife plunges into my shoulder.

Katniss is fighting off Enobaria, and Cashmere finally tosses a knife and hits Brutus straight in the throat. A cannon blasts. I fall to my knees, pulling his knife from my shoulder and collapsing into the ground. As Cashmere comes to my aid Katniss kicks Enobaria away. The dark-skinned girl comes to her wits and grabs Cashmere, holding her in front of her like a shield.

"Go ahead, kill me. You'll never do it without killing us both." And perhaps she's right. The way she's holding Cashmere, with a sword to her throat and Cashmere's slightly larger frame pressed against her own, it's nearly impossible for Katniss to hit the right mark.

However, she doesn't know Katniss like I do. She doesn't know that Katniss makes the impossible seem routine. The arrow flies from Katniss with purpose, striking Enobaria squarely between the eyes. It pierces the bone of her skull with a sickening crunch, followed by the soft squish of her brain. I immediately throw up as the cannon blasts for her, partly due to the noise, and partly due to the excruciating pain I'm in. The noise of my retching breaks Cashmere and Katniss from their adrenaline-laced focus and Katniss comes to my side.

She presses her hand against my shoulder, trying to stem the blood flow. Luckily the knife was small, but moving my arm makes a burning sensation run through my nerves, so I know he hit a muscle. It's my dominant arm too, I think with a grimace. Other than the spile Cashmere got from her sponsor, and the biscuits we got from ours, nobody has gotten many parachutes. Our Capitol-sent sponsor was an idiot in the brief time Blight and I saw him, so I didn't expect much.

Whilst Cashmere rummages around for something to wrap my wound in, a small silver parachute flies into the arena. She snatches it with her hands and practically rips it open like a mussel, revealing a very small bottle of some kind of salve. "Do you think it's for Johanna's cut?" Cashmere asks, fumbling with the bottle in her hand.

Katniss grabs it from her roughly. "No, it's for your sunburn," I choke out sarcastically, giving her the best smirk I can manage in the ridiculous pain I'm in. I manage to pull myself into a raised position, and Katniss begins rubbing the tar-black salve on my wound. "Holy fucking mother of fucking shit," I let out, along with every other colorful expletive I can think of. The pain is so blinding I nearly pass out.

But as she continues to rub the solvent into my skin, a cooling sensation happens where she is applying it. I can feel the wetness dripping down my back finally cease. Whatever it is that they sent me is like a liquid gauze. It begins to harden on my skin, and the feeling of drawing out begins. The three of us sit in the cornucopia while I try and regain some strength.

"Thanks," Cashmere says finally, looking at Katniss. "For saving me. And for not putting that arrow through me, too. Looks like I picked the right alliance, huh?"

Katniss nods, not offering a response. She helps me get to my feet slowly, and we begin the trek back toward the beach. Finnick's eyes narrow in concern but I wave him off. "It's fine. Let's just get this over with, shall we?"

* * *

Beetee's plan is apparently to break us out of the arena. He doesn't say anything, I guess for fear that the Gamemakers will set the arena on fire if he does, but that's what he implies. He instructs Katniss to tie the wire around the tree and to one of her arrows, and hit the manufactured sky above us. It's going to short circuit the electricity running the arena. I don't know what the plan is after that. Maybe to try and escape through the platforms? Whatever it is, it's got to be better than dying a slow death here.

As the rest of us stand guard she sends the arrow into the air, but the unexpected voltage sends electric shocks through all of us. I'm forced about fifteen feet backward by the blast, hitting my head against a knot of branches on the ground. I hear voices yelling, the buzz of a hovercraft, two cannons go off, and the smell of something burning. Flesh? Hair? Trees? I can't discern it because it feels like all of my senses are competing to be felt at once.

For the second time in only two days, I pass out in pain.

* * *

When I wake up, I'm not floating in the water peacefully like last time. I can hear the beeping of machinery, inhale the antiseptic smell of a hospital, but I can't see anything. My eyes open, but all that floods them is a bright white light. My arm is hooked up to some kind of machine, the other is strapped down to the bed I'm laying in. I miss the hot sun of the arena.

All the voices sound strange to me. They speak in clipped, hushed tones when they're around me. Nobody address me by name. I'm only vaguely aware that I'm on something moving - a hovercraft or a train, perhaps. For a while this is comforting. I've clearly made it out of the arena. I'm alive. These are two things to be thankful for.

But when my vision finally comes back to me, it's suddenly as if all my blood as been drained from my body. My entire being fills with dread as I lock eyes with the stone-cold blue hues of President Snow. He looks down at me, smirking as I pathetically attempt to struggle against my binds.

"Welcome back, Miss Mason."

* * *

**A/N: Hiiii new followers! Sorry to stop there but it feels like a good point to do so. Remember how I said I wasn't going anywhere and I was going to write? I lied. But I still got my writing done! And I'm going to make these finals my bitch so whatever.**


	11. I feel nothing

The cell they put me in is almost nicer than my house in Seven. There's a hardwood floor, a hearth, a large, comfortable bed, and even my own private bathroom. The walls are painted a navy blue, complete with gilded framed portraits and large draperies. I've been here for two days and nobody has come in here except for an Avox nurse who tends to my shoulder wound. My only consuming thought during the day is Katniss. I hope for her sake that she's not here. Although it's nice, I know that this must be a set-up. Nothing good happens in the Capitol for those who weren't born here.

On the third day a Peacekeeper comes in, pulling in a chair behind him. I swing my legs over the side of my bed, watching him silently. He places the chair in front of where I'm sitting and then promptly leaves. I'm left sitting on the bed, staring at the empty chair. Is this some sort of psychological test? Like if I sit on the chair it's going to blow me up? I realize it isn't when President Snow enters the room, strutting across the carpet and placing himself down in front of me in the chair.

His thin lips curl into a friendly smile. "How are you feeling, Johanna?"

"Fantastic," I reply snidely, tilting my head to the side. "Thanks for asking."

He nods and crosses his legs, leaning back into his chair. "Do you know why you're here?" A look of utter contempt and annoyance crosses my features and he smiles. "Of course you do. I didn't mean to offend your intelligence." He lets out a long sigh. "It's too bad that intelligence didn't go toward better use. I could have used someone of your ...particular talents here in the Capitol."

Everything he says sounds slimy coming out of his mouth, like watching a festering wound pour forth pus. I try my best to hide my revulsion. "Gee, thanks, it's too bad you forced me into playing your little Hunger Games. _Again_," I reply, crossing my legs underneath me, indian style. I bite the inside of my cheek, waiting for him to express his purpose.

He stands from his chair, walking around until he nears my window. He points to an oil painting on the wall. I hadn't noticed it before, but as he gestures towards it I finally give it a good glance. It's an old man in a small boat, clutching the hand of a small boy. "Do you know who this is, Johanna?" I shake my head in the negative. "This is Henry Hudson. Many, many centuries ago he took a ship from a far away country, attempting to find a more efficient trade route. The previous trade route was long and treacherous and had to be done by foot. Hudson intended to sail all the way around the globe."

"And by the looks of it, he failed?"

Snow smiles curtly and nods. "Yes. He found a river, one that today is mostly washed into the sea, and saw a country few learned men had ever seen. However, they were too far north and ran into trouble with some ice. Hudson was a great navigator, but he was a terrible ship captain. He didn't know how to keep his men in line in times of turmoil. As they waited ashore for the ice to clear, the men accused him of hoarding food. They had lost all their fear of their great captain, and found hope in their numbers. They mutinied." He continues pacing around my room as he gives me this bizarre history lesson. "They put he and his son and a few other men on a small boat and left them in the river. They took command of the boat and sailed back toward their homeland."

I purse my lips. "Sounds like they did what was right."

President Snow clasps his hands behind his back, nodding his head. "It would seem that way. But all of those men on that ship died. They died of disease, of sickness, and of wounds they suffered battling the local savages without a leader." He stops in front of me, staring down. He's so close to me I can smell the sickeningly familiar stench of blood and roses. "Do you think it was wise of them to disregard their captain and sail without him?"

I hike my eyebrow in challenge. "To prove a point? Yeah, sure."

He chuckles and backs away from me, sitting in the chair. "I thought you would. That's what I enjoy most about you, Johanna, your optimism that you so cleverly disguise behind your sarcasm and biting wit. That never-ending fire inside you."

"Thank you?"

"You have hope for Panem, am I correct? That like those mutineers, the rebels can overthrow what they think is a despot and run this country themselves?" I nod. "And what if they fail?"

I shrug my shoulders. "If they fail, they'd still be better off than they are under this garbage. Sending their children to the slaughter every year, dying of starvation, whoring themselves out to corrupt Peacekeepers for money and food." I don't know where my courage comes from, probably from the desperation that Snow is going to kill me, but I don't care. Only a few days ago I thought I was dead. Death doesn't frighten me any longer. I wonder if it ever did.

"My father always said it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees," I add, crossing my arms over my chest smugly.

"Ah, your father. He's a good, decent man. A carpenter by trade, right?" Wearily I nod. "He was delightful when I met him. Made strong coffee. I prefer tea, but as they say, when in Rome." I don't know who says that but I nod again in agreement. "What do you think he would say, if he were here in this room? Do you think he would agree with the rebels?"

"I think he'd be pretty pissed off as to why is only daughter was reaped twice, and why she was being held as a prisoner now."

"Is that what you think you are? My prisoner?"

"Considering the cell and the lack of freedom? Yeah I think prisoner pretty much covers it."

"Well, you know, I would ask your father myself but when I went to see him the second time, he wasn't as welcoming as last time." My heart falls in my chest, and I know my eyes are filled with fear. Snow is relishing it. "Not that I could blame him. As you said, he was pretty angry with you being reaped again. Not as forthright as you about it, but I can see where you get that fire from. Your Avox didn't look too happy, either. People say a thousand things with their eyes."

I grit my teeth, feeling like the bones would break if I clenched my jaw any harder. "What did you do to them?"

"Nothing," Snow replies, shrugging his shoulders. "Nothing yet. That all depends on you." I furrow my eyebrows in confusion and Snow calls to the door. A Peacekeeper comes in, dragging Violet in bound and gagged. The gag is a fucking joke, obviously just there for show. He shoves her roughly on to her knees and I get up in defense.

"Get your fucking dirty hands off of her," I yell toward the guard, who ignores me and keeps his rifle pointed at Violet's head. "Are you fucking deaf?" I launch toward him and he strikes me in the jaw with the blunt end of the rifle. He hits me with such force I stumble back against the wall. I blink hard a few times, trying to shake the stars from my vision. I've taken a few blows to the head recently and this one is not helpful.

Snow stands up from his seat, coming around to the other side of Violet. He places his hand on her shoulder and I clench my fists. It's enraging to be so powerless. "I know that you have no knowledge of the rebellion. I have it on good faith that you and Katniss were not involved in the planning in Thirteen. However, Katniss is the seed of this rebellion. And you are the water that nurtures that seed. Remove the water, and the seed dies. The question remains, then, how does one remove the water?"

I glare up at him, rubbing my jaw. "You're not going to turn me against Katniss."

"No. I am going to use you to wither her into nothing, from right here in the Capitol. You will do an interview with Caesar Flickerman, and you will do propos when called upon. You are here to convince Katniss to convince the rebels to surrender. Any time you feel like one of Hudson's mutineers, I will murder your little Avox here. Do it again, and I'll have your father murdered as well. Of course, do as you're told and I won't harm either of them. And once we've quelled this little uprising you'll all be put safely on a train back to Seven. Do you understand, Johanna?"

"And what about Katniss?" I ask. "You're not going to kill her. You're too scared of her for that." I see Snow bristle just for a moment and I grin. Smiling is painful with this new welt on my chin, but I do it anyway. "What happens to her?"

"If all goes as planned, I won't have to kill her. The districts will do it for me." He looks down at Violet. "Get her out of here." He returns his icy blue gaze to me. "I'll be seeing you soon, Miss Mason. Sleep well."

* * *

A few days later, after my bruise has healed, a prep team I don't recognize comes into my room and dresses me for my interview with Caesar. It's less of an interview and more of a staged production to send to Thirteen. I don't know anything about the rebellion there - I assume that's where they've taken Katniss. I don't know who else got out. The lack of knowledge is infuriating, but for the moment, it's keeping me alive. If I am ignorant of the rebellion, then I'm just a pawn to use against Katniss. Keep me alive, keep her alive.

Oddly enough, I'm not handed a script. I'm not even given a prompt. I ask around for directions but I just get shoved around to different people who primp my hair and straighten my dress. When I finally emerge on the stage, there is applause, but it's not as loud as it was when I was a tribute. The cameras aren't on yet. On the screens I can see they're playing propaganda - I see that District 12 has been ruined. My heart hurts for the families there - I hope Prim made it out okay.

The lights come on the stage and Caesar greets the audience, greets Panem, and the camera pulls back slowly to reveal me. I suddenly wonder if Katniss is watching. I stare into the camera lens thinking that if I look hard enough, I'll find her in the reflective glass. All I see is me. Me without her. Miserable.

"Welcome back Johanna," Caesar greets, sitting down in the chair next to me. "Didn't think I'd ever see you again. I'm glad I did."

"Thank you," I reply, giving him a small smile. "It wasn't part of my plan, that's for sure."

He chuckles softly and leans into me. "I know it wasn't. Your plan was to save Katniss. Just like it was in your first Games."

"Just like it is always."

"But it's clear," he leads, "that people had other plans." I furrow my eyebrows in confusion, but then I realize what he's saying. The rebellion. It obviously was clear to the Capitol what Beetee was doing. How Finnick knew and that's why he agreed to help us. And suddenly I get a flash of a memory - Katniss' bloodied arm. The arm they inject the tracker into. Mine is still in there, but hers... Cashmere. Cashmere must've known as well. How in the fuck does a girl from One get into a rebellion? I'm shaken from my thoughts by the sound of Caesar's voice. "Can you tell us a little about that night? Help us sort things out?"

I look over at him, finding new confidence in knowing I was right to trust Cashmere. That I was right to trust Finnick. They really were my allies. "First, let me tell you what it was like in that arena. It was hot. It was humid. Every inch of that arena is crawling with something waiting to kill you. The other tributes, the jungle, the water, everything. It's like when you're a kid and you trap a bug underneath a hot lamp? Everything in that bug's life is within that moment. Languishing, waiting to die."

Caesar nods for me to continue. "Everything else in your life that exists outside of that bubble...suddenly doesn't. Nothing exists except one goal - save her. We lost so many people..." I trail off, thinking of Mags and Wiress. Of poor Seeder and Chaff. The disoriented morphlings. Cashmere's brother. Blight. "We lost friends. It's hard to imagine being friends in that arena, but they were there. Keeping each other alive. But you're never supposed to lose sight of your goal."

"To save Katniss," Caesar interjects softly.

"To save Katniss." I pause, sucking in a deep breath to gain more courage to continue. "That last night, we didn't know what we were doing. We figured Beetee's plan was as good as any."

"If you don't mind my saying, it looks awful suspicous."

"I don't really give a fuck what it looked like. We didn't have another choice." I pause. "Well that's wrong. We did. I should have taken Katniss and run off with her earlier. I was too busy making allies and not thinking straight. It was hot, and I was hungry. But I never should have let him separate us. Now I've lost her." My voice cracks at the end, and a tear spills on to my cheek, unbidden. Caesar hands me a white handkerchief and I dab my cheek. As I recall those last few hours, my sadness boils into anger and I toss the handkerchief on the ground and stand on my feet. "We didn't know!"

"And what about your mentor, Blight? And Haymitch Abernathy?"

"I don't know what they knew!" I yell, basically screaming in Caesar's face. I can see the shock of the audience, and Caesar places his hand on my sternum. I back down, sitting in my seat and pressing the pads of my fingers against my temples. "I don't know what anyone knew. I only knew that I was supposed to save Katniss and I failed."

"What does your heart tell you?"

"That Blight died saving my life. That everyone in that arena was trying to help us. But I didn't know why. We didn't get far enough to start asking questions. I don't know if Cashmere would've turned on us, or Finnick? All I can tell you is what I was doing - trying to save Katniss. And in that endeavor I failed miserably. And I hope wherever she is," I aim my gaze at the cameras, "that she can forgive me."

"We can stop, Johanna, if you don't want to continue," he says softly, looking from the camera to me.

I smirk. "Was there more?"

"I was going to ask your thoughts on the war."

All I want to say is that the rebels should have hope. That they should continue doing what they're doing. Fight these fucking bastards and burn the Capitol to the ground with everyone in it. Okay maybe not Effie, Desiree, Cinna or Hiss... but everyone else. But I look down at my bracelet. Peeta's token. It's one of the few things they haven't taken from me. They've taken Katniss, my father, my mother, my hope, my life.. but they haven't taken the part of me that Peeta left. His memory keeping me calm, tempering the fire that burns inside me. What would he say, if he were on this stage?

Whatever he could to keep Katniss safe. But he would never compromise who he was. With new resolve I look into the camera. "A cease-fire."

"A cease-fire?"

I look at Caesar. "Yes. We've seen what happens when we fight each other - we're just going to wipe each other out. We will leave a broken country and burned earth for our kids, for all the future generations. There's no hope there. We should all lay our weapons down and reason. What other choice is there? Extinction." I feel like all the energy has been drained to me, and I look to Caesar tiredly. "Can I go back to my cell now?"

* * *

A day later I am escorted out of my room to eat lunch in a weird cafeteria. It's like a normal cafeteria, except there's nobody there but me. Typically my meals have been given to me in my room, but not today. Today I eat in a sterile white room as two Peacekeepers stand guard behind me. As if I pose some sort of threat in my government-issued cotton pajamas.

When I get back, my entire meal comes back up and on to the floor as I see why. Violet's body is hanging from my ceiling by a rope. I've never seen anyone hanged before - it's an outdated form of execution only seen in pictures and faraway images. But now I see it. I smell it. In the arena, death is quick. The bodies are only there a few moments before the hovercraft picks them up. When my mother died, she was only dead for a few hours before they took her body from her bedroom.

Death has a smell. A faint smell like game in the woods that's been left out too long. I've only smelled it a few times. Now, my entire room smells like death. It smells like human waste, bile, pulp and tinged with an otherworldly sweetness. The look of death: her eyes bulge from their sockets, her beautiful skin is tinged purple, what's left of her stump tongue is swollen and protruding from her mouth, her limbs hanging limply at her sides. I collapse into the wall behind me, furthest from her body and sink into the floor.

I did what they asked but clearly it wasn't enough.

...

They have me do another interview, but I'm less exuberant this time. I haven't slept in two days. They haven't removed Violet's body from my room. The smell of putrefaction is making me insane. So insane that the guards are less tight-lipped around me. They think I've gone mad so they've let slip a piece of information I have been trying to figure out how to get to Katniss - they are going to attack Thirteen. Katniss is doing propos in Eight, helping the rebels. But she is alive and well. This angers Snow. They are going to attack her where she thinks she's safe. The interview ends before I can say anything. And it does nothing.

My father's body is strung up next to Violet's when I return to my room.

He looks nothing like how I remember seeing him last. His face is ragged, his eyes swollen like Violet's. Her eyes popped out a day ago and now hang on her cheeks like ornaments on a tree. Her neck has almost come completely severed by the weight of her decomposing corpse. His face is cut and bruised, his fingernails cracked and some missing entirely. I muster up the courage to go near where he's hanging. I try to imprint the image of when I last saw him - singing with me at the table, hugging me goodbye with unshed tears in his eyes.

I take his hand and pull his wedding ring off. It's hard to come off because of how swollen with bacteria and gas all his blood vessels are, but it finally comes loose. It's too big to fit on my hand so I remove Violet's tie she made me and I slip a knot around the ring. I use the long ribbon as a necklace, as a choker, and fasten it around my neck.

I crawl into the far corner of the room where I've been sleeping and curl into a blanket. Sleep doesn't come to me. Softly I sing "Red River Valley," trying to imagine my father's voice singing it with me. I spend the night etching every memory I have of him further into my brain. I never want to forget his eyes, the crinkle of his smile, his voice, his fingers that deftly worked a fiddle and built strong furniture, the smell of wood and coffee he had on him.

I'm Johanna Mason. Daughter of Benjamin and Amelia Mason. I'm from District Seven. I won the 74th Hunger Games. I love Katniss Everdeen. I'm an orphan. I'm a traitor.

I repeat this mantra until the sun rises again in the window behind the bodies and breakfast is shoved underneath the door.

* * *

The next interview I do, I look horrible. The bags under my eyes are so puffy the skin is tinged blue. My hair is splitting, frayed in every direction since I haven't had something proper to eat in weeks. My skin is alabaster and I look like a ghoul. I go through the motions with Caesar, when suddenly the television interrupts with static and I see Katniss. I finally _see _her and the elation I feel is almost strange. I haven't been happy in so long I don't know how to react. I'm genuinely confused.

"Katniss," I whisper, more to myself than anyone else. "Katniss," I say louder. I repeat her name so much I'm almost screaming it when the cameras finally cut back. "Katniss!" The camera is on me now. "How do you think this is going to end? Nobody is safe. Not here, not where you are. No one. And you in Thirteen? You'll be dead by nightfall!"

The lights cut off like the day before the Quarter Quell, but this time there's legitimate panic. I'm thrown from my seat, kicked in the stomach and punched. I'm so close to the camera my blood splatters on to the lens. I keep trying to yell out to Katniss, but my words are muffled by fists and the cradles of rifles. Finally after taking a few minutes of this beating, I pass out.

* * *

I wake up in a very different place. I'm in a metal chair in the middle of a room, my legs strapped to the bottom, my arms strapped to the top. My head is pounding, probably from the beating I took on the stage. The room is white-walled, the floor is a metal grating I've only seen in factories. There is a television on the wall in front of me. Bright white lights above my head. The only noise in the room is the slow murmur of the machines next to me, and the occasional scream of whoever is in the adjoined cell.

They can't hurt me. There's no one left I love. Katniss is protected by the rebels. My parents are dead. My only friends are dead. My allies from the arena are probably dead. Everything is so devoid of meaning, it would be almost funny if I could manage to muster up laughter or humor.

I feel nothing. I am nothing.

When you're floating in the water with your head just below the surface, you feel faraway. The gentle rocking of the water and the muteness of the liquid in your ears is almost like death. But it's peaceful. It's welcome. What I feel now is sort of similar. Except instead of peace, it's nothingness. I feel like I'm stuck in an all-white room with no windows or doors and no way to escape. The sound of my heart beating is annoying, like when there's something beeping in your house and you can't find the source? You check all the cabinets and rooms but something just keeps beeping? My heart just keeps pounding.

I wish it would stop.

I always felt like I had a reserve of anger. Every time something bad or slightly unfortunate happened in my life, I had anger to use. When I was little and my father wouldn't let me swing my ax in the house, I was angry. When my mother told me I had to wear a dress to school, I was angry. When she died and left me as a scared ten-year-old who didn't understand the finality or crushing weight of death, I was angry. Anger is my touchstone. It's in every red blood cell in my body.

I can turn that anger into other things. I can turn it into sadness, into passion, into pleasure. My anger is like the forge in which I mould new weapons in my personality. Fittingly, the only person who dared come near my flames was none other than the girl on fire herself. It used to be that thinking of her sparked my entire body.

Now, thinking of her does nothing. Everything is nothing. My memories of her are yellowed and blurry like ancient photographs. It's all become sepia-toned nonsense that means as much to me as a glance from a stranger across a room. I know that the love is there - I can see it so clearly. I can't grasp it, I can't feel it. My love for her is like watching wind blow through the trees - it's _there_, so painfully close, why can't I feel the wind, too?

They have attached an IV to each of my arms - one pumps morphling at random intervals that keeps me sedated even though I'm sedated enough on my own - and the other feeds me some weird yellow paste that I assume is nutrition. They are keeping me alive against my will. At this moment it feels like the only thing that will make me feel anything, is the cold blade of death.

The forge inside me has died.

* * *

They come in the middle of the night. I'm not asleep - sleep is as foreign to me now as happiness - so I hear the gunfire and the scuffling. I can smell the bullets and the sulfuric smell of other fired weapons. Even though I hear it, I smell it, it doesn't feel like it's happening to me. They burst in my door - rebels I don't recognize dressed in black outfits.

They untie me from my chair, carefully taking the IVs from my arms. Naturally I try to get up, pushing myself into a standing position. However, I've been sitting in an upright position for what I think is almost two weeks. Time hasn't exactly been relevant. I can't walk. I collapse into the arms of one of the soldiers, who hoists me on his shoulder and they carry me out of the room.

I see the bodies of fallen Peacekeepers scattered around the hallways. I see the shiny gold bullet casings on the ground. I hear the shouts of men and women as they open the other cells.

I feel nothing. I am nothing.

They wrap me in a blanket as I board the hovercraft. Distantly someone tells me that I'm safe now, that I'm on my way to Thirteen. Everything is going to be okay. The rebels have me and I'm safe. Soon, I'll be reunited with Katniss. I'll touch her face, kiss her lips, hear her voice, feel her breath on my skin.

I feel nothing. I am nothing.

* * *

**A/N: So that's probably the darkest thing I've written...ever. I apologize. I wanted to go a different route than torture. It's not fun to write, and I've written some of the next chapter and that's not fun, either. Again I'll ask for your patience. :) Holy shit 83 followers?! Wow you guys are wicked awesome. It makes me feel kinda bad about all the angst ...**


	12. Same hell, different place

Thirteen has been heavily bombarded by the Capitol when we arrive. All I know of Thirteen are the warnings they would put on the television of smoldering ruins. It looks like there were some buildings, but a lot of them have been destroyed. I knew the rebellion was growing here, but I had no idea it was so sophisticated. I'm briefed on the hovercraft by a female solider on the general rules of Thirteen; the strict schedule, the uniforms, the training. She also tells me that I'll be undergoing a lot of evaluation and probably asked a lot of questions.

She's right. The moment I step into the underground facility I'm swept into the hospital. It feels like every doctor in the entire damn place is poking and prodding me; I'm not left alone even for a second. They give me an IV similar to the one I had in the Capitol, but no morphling. I hear them toss around words like "malnourished" and "suffering withdrawal" but it doesn't make any sense. I'm not addicted to anything. When they undress me I see what they mean about the nutrition - I could play the xylophone on each of my ribs. I hadn't really noticed, or cared, when I was in the Capitol.

After a few days of being in the hospital, I'm finally paid a visit by Haymitch. He looks like crap - from what I understand, there's no alcohol allowed in Thirteen at all, so he must be miserable. He sits on the edge of my hospital bed, looking around at all the machines they have monitoring me. "Welcome back," he says, almost sardonically, but he wears a genuine smile.

"Thanks," I reply. I haven't heard the sound of my voice in a while, and it sounds strange. Husky and strained, like I was a colicky baby. "How's life?"

Haymitch shrugs. "Same hell, different place," he says, looking around the room again. "A more rigid, cleaner hell." I smirk. "How about you? Have you seen the psychologist yet?"

"Yeah." I look down at my arm where they've stamped my schedule for the day. I'm sure if I was feeling more myself I'd be chafing underneath all this structure. But the set list of things to do is actually comforting. "Apparently I'm supposed to see him again in an hour."

"Good luck," he said, in a voice that probably would've been accompanied by a raise of his flask. He began to look at me strangely, his blue eyes softening into worry in a way I had never seen them. "I'm sorry about your father. I didn't know him, but he raised one hell of a kid."

My father. The thought should rise guilt or sadness inside me - intellectually, I understand this. But somehow it's out of my grasp. I nod numbly, more confused than grateful. "How is everyone else? Who else ..." I don't know how to finish that sentence. I don't know whose screams I heard in the other cell, or who made it out of the arena alive or who was left to die there.

Haymitch understands me anyway. "We rescued Katniss, Finnick and Beetee from the arena. They picked up you and Cashmere. They also kidnapped Annie Cresta."

"Why her?"

Haymitch sighs. "To rattle Finnick. They couldn't torture him physically, so they went with the next best thing. They didn't hurt her, though. Cashmere is another story."

"Yeah, a weird story," I follow, raising my eyebrow. "I had no idea she was in on it."

He smiles sadly, nodding his head. "I know you didn't. Nobody even thought to approach the Careers because of their relationship with the Capitol. She approached Blight after the Victory banquet. She wanted to know how to be allies with you."

"Why?"

"I don't know that it's my place to tell you that. All I can tell you is that the Careers are not immune to the manipulation of the Capitol. They usually are just less resistant." The oddness in his tone makes me think there's something beyond what he's telling me. I don't press it, either due to lack of motivation or a sense that he won't tell, and I nod in understanding. "She's recuperating in another room. I think you might want to see her. She's not going to have many friends."

* * *

My session with my head doctor is weird. He asks me to describe what happened in the Capitol, so I do. I tell him about Snow's threats, how he killed Violet and my dad, how they left me in a blank room for days. It's when I tell him of the vast nothingness I'm in that he looks somewhat interested in what I'm saying. I explain to him how my emotions are like boats adrift, and I keep swimming out to try and reach them but I'm constantly swept away. I tell him how I haven't slept in almost a week. His eyes go so wide with alarm I think they're going to pop out of his head.

He murmurs to a nurse who exits and enters quickly with a small white bottle. I am instructed to take the pill now, so I do, and that every morning I'm to report to the nurse's station and get some other pill to help with my "mental situation." I guess the one I took was for sleep. They clasp a different bracelet around my wrist, one that labels me "at-risk." I don't know what I'm at risk for. I inquire about getting normal clothes, since these cotton pajamas remind me of being in the Capitol and they don't look exactly becoming on me.

I'm given a Thirteen jumpsuit in the same ugly grey color as all the walls around here. But I get a pair of leather hunting boots and I feel a little more myself in them. With my newfound "freedom" - aka I can walk around the hospital - I find someone who directs me to Cashmere.

Haymitch was right - she does look like she needs a friend. The skin that's exposed is covered in faint scarring, her arm is hooked up to one of the many machines I recognize from my room (morphling), her usually sparkling blonde hair is wilted and fraying, splayed out on her pillow. When I clear my throat as I get near her, her eyes flutter open slowly. A small smile forms on her dry lips as her green eyes - that usually glimmer like emeralds but are now dulled - meet mine.

"Johanna," she whispers softly, patting the space next to her on the bed. "Don't be scared. I don't bite."

"Please, like I've ever been afraid of you," I retort with a smirk, sitting down next to her prone form. I take in her appearance, the smirk falling from my lips as I see the physical devastation of what they did to her. Whatever they did that made her scream so much when I was in the room next door took its toll. The robust bravado of the girl I saw in the arena is gone. She looks so fragile. "You look like hell."

"Fuck you," she murmurs, wincing as she lets out a few chuckles. "So do you."

"Yeah," I say, looking down at my own scarred body. I wasn't tortured like Cashmere, but the beating I took as left quite a few gashes all over my skin. "The Capitol treatment was a little different this time around, huh?"

She shrugs. "At least I was there on my own terms this time."

There it is again. This weird hinting of the Capitol's treatment of her. I remember back when Violet was telling me about her sister, and how she and Finnick were bought and sold against their will. Looking at Cashmere, how beautiful and strong she is, I imagine she suffered a similar fate. Her brother probably did, too. I try and think like Snow for a moment: who did he blackmail them with? I grimace when I think of the ultimate fuck-over: each other. If one of them backed out, he'd have the other killed.

"How's Katniss?" she asks, and my wandering gaze falls on her again.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. I didn't ask, but one of the nurses who has taken a liking to me told me that Katniss was in Two filming a propo. "She's in Two, last I heard."

Cashmere furrows her eyebrows. "You mean she doesn't know you're here?"

"I don't think so." I'm glad, though, because I'm not ready for that emotional reunion. I don't think I have enough feelings. And everyone else is going to have so many feelings that the thought makes me kind of dread it. I want to see her - there's an ache that pulls at all my muscles when she isn't around - but I don't know how I'm going to muster up the emotions I know she'll be expecting.

Cashmere still looks confused. "Are you not happy to see her again?" Annoyance flashes over her face. "Because honestly Johanna, I'll fucking strangle you right here if you're not."

I let out a soft chortle and shake my head. "No, I will be. I'll have to be." My answer only confuses her more and I shrug. "I don't know, C." A ghost of a smile passes her lips as I let loose that nickname for her. "I feel weird. I feel empty. I know I should be excited to see her again, but I don't even _get_ excitement. Like why? Everything is pointless bullshit. Everybody dies."

"Can't disagree with you there," she says. The notion that someone might understand what I'm feeling (or not feeling) stokes my soul a little. "You look like you haven't slept in days. Did they give you something to get you to sleep? This morphling is the fucking best," she gushes, eyeing her machine. "They've been cutting me back but it helps."

I push my fingers through her blonde hair, curling it around her ear and letting my hand rest on her shoulder. I haven't felt the touch of another person in so long that I'm mesmerized by how soft her skin is. She doesn't notice my creepy staring because her eyes have closed, her lips slightly parted. I wonder if I would have turned out like Cashmere if not for Katniss and the Quell. Would I have turned into this self-congratulatory killing machine? Would I have become even more jaded to the world? Would I still have hated the Capitol?

My train of thought is derailed by her slowly entwining our fingers near her face, her head turned to pass her lips over the back of my hand. I'm suddenly drowsy and I mumble something incoherent about getting back to my room. Cashmere shuffles over on her bed, her hand still gripped with mine. Without giving it much thought I kick my boots off and get underneath her thin white sheet, my arm wrapped around her side. Without her usual Capitol attire, she is free of invasive perfume. She smells clean, with a slight hint of vanilla. So different from Katniss, but soothing nonetheless.

It's the first time I've slept in a week. And it was glorious.

* * *

That's pretty much how I spend the next two weeks. During the day I hang out with Cashmere, Finnick and Annie, usually sitting outside in the woods or walking around the rabbit hole we call a home now. I've come to really like Cashmere; I appreciate her candor. We go for long runs when Finnick and Annie are holed up somewhere being disgustingly cute, taking laps around the track or hunting in the woods. For a girl who was a trained killer, Cashmere sucks at hunting something fierce. She goes for the kill - the head or the heart. I try to remind her that the head and eye are best, since it doesn't ruin the meat.

She doesn't get it and almost half of the kills we get are useless. But it's sweet to see her try, since I'm sure her growing up did not include hunting trips and bagging skinned animals. At night I sneak into her room and sleep next to her; the comfort of another person helps us both get away from nightmares. Hers are more violent than mine, and often I have to wake up and tell her a story about my childhood to calm her down. Stories about growing up in Seven, my dad being away sometimes, his love of music and obsession with the fiddle, my mother's hunting skills all usually calm her into a light slumber again. Telling her these stories and seeing how awed she is by them makes me feel badly about how she grew up.

You can have everything and still not really have anything, you know? My parents loved me, they didn't sell me to the Capitol. My worth was never measured in how many kids I could kill, or how many pounds I could lift. The Hunger Games are the perfect way to keep the districts away from each other; we can bond in the training, learn about how the other ones live, and it doesn't matter because no information will ever leak from the arena. We'll all die knowing how fucked up Panem is and no one back home would be the wiser.

Until Katniss, of course. She'll never understand how important she is, how she completely changed history by agreeing to take those berries with me. Whether it was from a place of rebellion, affection, or plain confusion, she changed history. Win or lose, Panem will never be the same because of her.

I certainly won't be.

...

The people who work in the hospital don't seem to mind, or at least don't say anything, when I crawl into her bed and sleep with her at night. One night I wake up in the middle of the night - not from a nightmare, oddly enough, but just naturally. I stopped taking the sleeping medication because I hate it, and apparently it means that I wake up almost every hour, even when Cashmere's troubled yells don't wake me first.

I wake up and as my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see green eyes staring into mine. Before I can register surprise at being stared at while I sleep, her eyes close and she leans forward, capturing my lips in a soft but heated kiss. For a moment I'm too stunned to respond; I've almost forgotten what it's like to be kissed. But I remember and return it, opening my mouth compliantly when she runs her tongue along my lips and runs it against my teeth.

I'll hand it to her, she's a talented kisser. She's had a lot of practice, in an unfortunate sense. I think of all the men - and possibly women - that have used her for her body. I don't want to do that. Pressing down my more dominant side that wants to grab a fistful of that luxurious blonde hair, I slide my hand up her face slowly, tracing her cheekbones with my thumb. I caress the side of her face, threading my fingers in her thick blonde hair and gently massaging her scalp. She lets out a quiet whimper into my mouth and I can't stifle the smile on my face. As the kiss deepens and slows, I think of what the sex would be like with someone so similar in attitude. Angry? Powerful? Dueling for dominance?

Or maybe she would just want to be loved.

Before things can go any further she pulls away, laying her head back down on the pillow beside me. For a few beats we lay there, each of us catching our breath. I can see she's struggling to say something so I swallow down any remarks that had bubbled up into my throat. "I'm not good at gratitude." I raise my eyebrow at her and she taps me on the shoulder. "Shut up. I just ...wanted to thank you for being so nice to me. Nobody's ever been this nice to me before."

I know what it took for her to admit that so I just smile, continuing to rub her head through her hair. She takes my hand in her own, placing a small kiss on it before she turns over and pulls me against her body. I bury my face in her hair, inhaling the sweet soapy scent of her. "This must be what love feels like," she murmurs, and her chest jerks in a short laugh. "You don't have to say anything. I know that you love Katniss, and I'm not trying to get in the way of that. But it's just my luck, huh?"

...

It's around one in the afternoon; lunchtime for the citizens of Twelve. I take my happy pills and retrieve my tray of food to find Finnick and Cashmere at a table. He looks more radiant than I've ever seen him, and one glance at the redhead attached to his side reveals why. I see the blonde girl blush as we make eye contact, her eyes diverting to her plate.

Finnick and Annie whisper to each other, smiling and letting out small giggles. I sit down next to Cashmere and raise my eyebrow. "They've been like this all day," she complains, but with a small smile on her face. It's hard not to feel happy for them. Not for me, because happy is way far out of my perception, but I can see it on everyone else. Their love is contagious.

I make a face that I hope conveys happiness and dig into my stew. The texture of the stew takes some getting used to, it's like a gelatinous sludge. But these are the first real meals I've eaten since we left for the Quarter Quell, so I'm not going to complain. Finnick informs me that once I'm cleared from the hospital and I get my own compartment that I'll be able to begin training.

My head bobs in understanding, but I don't really care. I'd like to eliminate Snow, but what difference does it make? Another tyrant will take his place - President Coin maybe - and we'll be back where we started. There is nothing left to hope for, other than a swift death.

"I'm really glad you're okay," Finnick says finally, breaking the awkward silence at our table. He looks at Cashmere. "Both of you."

Cashmere smiles sadly and nods, and I try to mimic that reaction. "Thanks. Thanks for all your help in there."

He shrugs. "You would've done the same, if you had known." I might have. The Old Johanna was full of rage and passion, she would have loved the chance to get back at Snow. "Katniss was pretty miserable when you were gone."

"Oh?" I try to gauge their reactions to see if I made the right face. Off their concerned looks, I didn't. "I was miserable without her, too." It's not entirely untrue. Before that last week, I had thought of nothing but her. Even when I slept in the room with my father and my friend strung by the ceiling, watching their bodies decompose right in front of me, I thought of her. When I saw her face on the propo, my heart pounded three times as fast as normal.

"You should stop by Beetee one day. He's making me a trident. A custom one. Maybe he can make you a cool ax," Finnick suggests with a smile.

Instead of replying and perhaps saying something not in the right emotional wheelhouse, I just nod my head and continue eating my soup. We're interrupted by a lot of hustling around, as a few of the guards leave the cafeteria and go toward the hallway in a hurry. Immediately everyone begins whispering, but Finnick seems to understand what's going on.

"They're back," he says, looking at me expectantly. I glance to Cashmere also gives me the indication that I should have some sort of reaction. Finnick raises his eyebrow. "The soldiers who went to Two." I nod. He sighs in exasperation. "Katniss is back."

Katniss is back. Katniss. Right. "So I should be going to see her," I say slowly, lifting my legs from around the bench seat. Everyone is looking at me like I sprouted ten arms so I hastily make my way toward where everyone else is going, but I'm stopped by a brown-haired, familiar-looking soldier. His handsome face is sullied with dirt and grime, his uniform torn in a few places. He stands almost a foot taller than me, his grey eyes boring into mine. "You can't go past here," he says.

I raise my eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

The boy sighs and steps into my way. He takes me by the wrist and shows me me lime green bracelet with 'at-risk' printed on it. "Look, you can't go into that area of the hospital. You don't have the clearance." As I look into his penetrating eyes, I realize why he looks so familiar. This is Gale. Instead of dredging up some jealousy, it makes me feel like I have mild heartburn. This is the Gale that Katniss could have run away with and married. I try to push up jealousy from within me, but all I manage is faint disinterest. Damn.

"I'm going to see her. So you can either get out of my way, or I can make you get out of my way." It's an idle threat, and Gale can sense it. He pulls me aside.

"Look, I can get you in to see her tomorrow. She took a bullet and they have to repair any damage it might have done." I must make a look that seems like alarm because he shakes his head. "It isn't too serious. Cinna's outfit deflected most of the damage. She's going to be fine, she just needs to rest."

She took a bullet. Katniss is back with a bullet in her. She needs to rest. Took a bullet. I felt like I was trying to put together a puzzle; fitting his words in the right order to finally unlock how I was supposed to feel. See her tomorrow. See her, talk to her, touch her.

I nod numbly. "Okay. I guess I'll see her tomorrow, then," I reply. Gale looks momentarily confused, even surprised, but he covers it by nodding his head. I guess he was expecting more of a fight. Johanna Mason doesn't listen to anyone. Johanna Mason doesn't take directions. But Johanna Mason feels like a different person from this empty shell that I am inhabiting, walking around and using up precious air that could be going toward someone else. Someone who thinks life is worth living.

* * *

I wake up early the next morning, take my pill and get my breakfast. My session with the head doctor goes well, and he gets me a different bracelet. Now I'm not "at-risk" any longer, but just a regular patient like Cashmere. He tells me that in a few days I could probably start training, as long as it was cleared by Coin and Plutarch Heavensbee.

Gale finds me wandering the hallways a few hours later. His face clear of dirt, he looks even more like Katniss than before. It was weird to me that they were even attracted to each other - they look so similar. From how Peeta had described him during the games, they even acted similarly. I shook the thoughts from my head as I realized he was taking me to Katniss' room in the hospital.

He stood outside the door and nodded for me to go in. "She doesn't have a roommate at the moment, so it'll just be you." I flash him an appreciative smile and tentatively walk into the room, closing the door softly behind me.

She's asleep when I get in there, curled on to her side, facing the room. For the past two weeks, I haven't been able to feel much of anything. Looking at her, hurt, convalescing in the bed and suddenly I'm angry. I'm angry that I can't feel sadness. I'm angry that I'm not happy to see her. I _am _happy to see her, but I can't feel the happiness like you're supposed to.

I watch the slow rise and fall of her chest, each breath causing more and more anger to erupt from within me. I try to swallow it down like a bitter pill and I advance toward her, kneeling down next to her bed. My name falls from her lips in a soft, plaintive whisper and I stifle my noise of surprise. She moves around in her bed, fitfully wrestling with the sheets and whispering my name again.

My mind reverses to the nights on the train or in the center, when I would sleep with my arms around her to soothe her nightmares. I could easily do that now, and I'm sure my presence would help her. But instead of empathy or desire, all I can manage is this boiling anger. I realize the hospital ward is not a good place for this emotion and I leave, closing the door and ignoring the call from Gale and the confused look on his stupidly handsome face. I keep walking, almost jogging, until I get to my head doctor's office.

I open the door without being invited. He's hunched over some paperwork and his slightly balding head whips up when he hears the door slam. "Johanna? Is everything okay?"

"No!" I yell, pacing around the room in a short four-step back-and-forth across his carpet. "No! Everything is fucked to hell!"

"Johanna, calm down, tell me why you're so angry."

"Because!" I scream, planting my hands firmly on the other side of his desk. He leans back into his chair away from me. "Because I can't feel anything! I'm so lost and it's not fucking fair. The person I love more than anything that's ever walked this earth is sitting in a hospital bed. She was shot. She could have died. And she's just laying there, and I'm not even sad that she's hurt. I'm not happy to see her. It's not fair!"

He waits a few moments, letting the labored breathing in my chest to subside before he speaks calmly. "Depression isn't fair to anyone, Johanna."

Depression. He had told me that's what I had been feeling, but I didn't quite grasp it. Depression felt like the thing that pathetic people feel. People who can't work themselves out of a rut so they say they're depressed and just fuck off for the rest of their lives. Nobody, especially not a Mason, was prone to depression. We fought through everything, held our chins high with purpose. We didn't take mood stabilizers and whine because we can't feel sadness.

"But this right here," he says, motioning to me up and down, "this is progress. Anger is an emotion, Johanna. A very useful one. One I'm sure you're familiar with." I cant my head at his suggestion and he smiles gently. "You know what I mean. You can use this anger to possibly channel your other emotions. Everyone deserves to feel the spectrum of human emotions - sometimes life can get in the way."

"I feel pathetic," I say, slumping into the chair on the other side of his desk.

"There's no reason for that. Depression isn't a punishment, it's a mental disorder. You have had a very traumatic few years, Johanna. Your brain has had to process conflicting information at such a high rate that perhaps this was your body's way to compartmentalizing all of it. Or maybe there's just not enough endorphins getting to you. Maybe you need more sunlight. I don't know the cure, Johanna, all I know is that it lies with you."

"He stole my grief," I mumble, and my doctor looks momentarily puzzled. "Snow," I clarify. "He stole my grief for my father. I wasn't even sad. And he was right there. His body was right there, hanging in front of me." My hand goes to my neck where his ring is still tied to me. "Dead. My father was dead and I couldn't even _grieve _for him."

The doctor nods, pressing his fingers together. "Well, Johanna, this is an important first step to recovery. Some people take months, even years, to emerge from depression. Some people never do. But you can take this anger you've found and run with it. I mean, don't actually run and do something dangerous." I smirk. "But go with it. Feel it. Explore your anger."

I want to explore my anger all over Snow's face. "And what about Katniss?"

"What about her?"

I sigh. "How can I explain to her that I'm not happy to see her? That I'm just angry with myself for failing her. I'm angry that she got hurt. I'm angry I wasn't there to protect her like I promised Peeta. I failed him, too."

"Is that how you see yourself? As a failure?" I nod. He gives me a lopsided smile. "You are anything but. I don't know what it means coming from me, but I have never seen bravery like I've seen in you. People twice your age and twice your size have been crushed under less duress than what you've seen. I think Katniss, and your friend Peeta, and your father would be extremely proud of you. I'm proud of you, for whatever that's worth."

I let out a sigh and affirm with a shake of my head that I appreciate his comment. "And how do you know that you won't be happy to see her? I can prescribe you anything under the sun to cope with this disease, Johanna, but sometimes the cure comes in places we don't expect."

* * *

I wait a while to test his hypothesis. Three days, in fact. I visit Katniss while she sleeps, reading her books that my head doctor lent me or sitting there in silence. One night I accidentally fall asleep next to her bed, my head in between the mattress and her pillow. I come to an hour or so later to the feeling of fingers running through my hair.

It's so comforting I don't open my eyes for a while. When I do, I see her grey eyes smiling as she sees me. She looks beautiful, the palest of freckles on her make-up-free face, her eyelashes long and fluttering prettily over her eyes. A stirring forms in the pit of my stomach as we sit there in a comfortable muteness. "Hey you," I say finally, a small, real smile forming on my lips.

"Hey," she greets back, her voice a lower timbre than usual. It sends a small shudder down my spine.

"How are you feeling?" I ask, reaching my hand up to thread my fingers through her hair. Her eyes close at the contact. I'm amazed at how we can affect each other this way, even after what we've been through. I've been so afraid of seeing her again, so consumed with my fear that I've forgotten that fear is an emotion, too. And seeing her now, I can understand the theory behind hope being stronger than fear. Because the way she looks at me stirs everything that's been rotting inside of my heart. It's frightening, but liberating.

"Better now," she says quietly, smiling at me. Her eyes search my face before her hand comes around to cup my cheek, the pad of her thumb tracing my jaw. My breath catches in my throat as she leans in, pressing her lips softly against mine. She pulls away, gazing intensely into my eyes. "I missed you so much, Johanna."

And in what feels like the first genuine reaction I've had in weeks I smile at her, leaning my forehead against hers. "I missed you too."

* * *

**A/N: I'm so completely humbled by your reviews and follows. It's so encouraging to know that you guys are enjoying this story, even when it gets a little dark. I promise good things ahead..._eventually. _Ah and to the lovely person who enjoyed Violet, I loved her too. It broke my heart to kill her. More than any other fictional death I've written. -hug.- **


	13. Not a single fucking moment

The training is embarrassing. Both Cashmere and I are experienced fighters, but we are in this remedial class with a bunch of kids who haven't even hit puberty and couldn't shoot a rabbit if it was already dead. We breeze through the training sections easily, but the classroom portion is trying. We each have trouble concentrating, but we boost each other up and manage to get through the classes anyhow.

The shooting class is my favorite. I don't consider myself a sharp-shooter, but I love these rifles. York had decided we didn't need practice with our speciality weapons, so we didn't go near axes or knives. Instead we got a lot of training with the rifles. Quickly we get moved up into the advanced rifle class, where Katniss, Finnick and Gale do their training.

We are placed into groups for the last challenge of the day. Cashmere and me, Finnick and Katniss, and Gale and some Thirteen person I don't know or recognize. We have to hit as many moving targets in a 30-second trial as we can. When the bell rings we begin, and since I can't see the other teams, I don't know if we're doing better or worse. But I want to win.

I try and strike the targets as fast as I can, sweat appearing on my brow as I move in tandem with Cashmere to try and hit them dead on. The thirty seconds is up fast and as I step back to take a look at the scores, I see that we beat out Finnick and Katniss by three points, and the other team by six. I raise my hand high and Cashmere gives me an enthusiastic high five.

"Suckers!" she taunts the others, waving her rifle around in the air.

"Well done, Soldiers Mason and Goldsmith. The rest of you should put more effort into your practice. These two are practically infants with their rifles and they did better than you." Well she sucked all the good out of that compliment, but Cashmere and I are excited anyway. When I finally catch Katniss' grey eyes, they are boring into Cashmere's back so hard I'm surprised she doesn't have a hole in her uniform.

Katniss and Finnick come up to us, the brunette stepping in between Cashmere and me as Finnick talks to her. Katniss puts her hand around my neck and pulls me into a soft kiss, briefly tugging my bottom lip between her teeth as she lets me go. My eyes are unfocused with desire as I level my gaze at her. "Nice job, _Soldier Mason_," she says huskily, running her thumb over my mouth before letting me go.

It's not beyond me that this is a possessive maneuver, but it's nice to see that Katniss feels something toward me, even if it is petty jealousy. She gives a long stare to Cashmere as she walks toward the door of the training room.

"Seriously, she's gonna give me those looks? I saved her life," Cashmere seethes, and Finnick shakes his dirty blonde hair and chuckles. "I saved both your lives. And this is my reward? Snide looks from the mockingjay?" We're not entirely out of Katniss' earshot, so I don't know how to respond.

Finnick nudges her with his hip. "Maybe you shouldn't be hitting on her girlfriend then. People tend to frown upon those things." Cashmere has the humility to blush at this comment.

"Yeah, well, I don't see 'Katniss' written on her anywhere, so all's fair, you know?" She tosses a wink at me over her shoulder as I shake my head and follow them out. Maybe in another lifetime where I wasn't tethered to Katniss, that girl and I would have had some fun. But unfortunately, Katniss has pretty much ruined me for anyone else.

* * *

"I'm just really angry a lot."

My doctor nods his head, leaning back in his chair. I've still been spending my days with the newly engaged Finnick and Annie, as well as Cashmere, but not Katniss. She's been in such demand with Plutarch and Coin that I only see her during training. Even though I've been on a steady diet of whatever these pills are, the only emotion I can seem to fully get a hold of is anger, so I still see my doctor. (Also because it's always stamped on my hand.)

Running has helped a lot. On his suggestion Cashmere and I had begun running weeks ago, and it has helped in clearing my head. But it seems like every time I stop being muddled in this funk, all I can think is how mad I am at Snow. What's worse is the sinking feeling that it doesn't matter. I can be mad at him until I see my last moon and it won't matter. He could die, Panem could flourish, and where would I be? Still floating in this frustrating sea of nothingness.

"Have you had a chance to speak with Katniss about this?"

I shake my head. "She's been pretty busy with propos and planning. I didn't want to bother her." In truth I haven't wanted to talk about it. She's been living with Prim and her mother in their compartment, and I've been living with Cashmere in ours, and I just haven't taken the thirty-foot walk from my compartment to hers.

He looks at me disapprovingly over his glasses. "Your happiness is important, too, Johanna. This rebellion is obviously a priority for everyone, but what good will it do if no one can enjoy it?"

"I'm sure Panem will be fine even if I mope around Seven for the rest of my days."

"Panem needs you." He leans forward in his chair, clasping his hands and placing them on the desk. "Plutarch Heavensbee asked for my permission to place you in a propo." I hike my eyebrow, nonplussed by this interesting turn of events. "I told him I would discuss it with you before telling him anything. Personally, I think you're more than ready. I know you haven't gotten back to where you were, but if you can channel this rage into something productive, I think it's for the best."

I muse on that thought a moment, furrowing my eyebrows. I want to be helpful; I've spent far too much time feeling useless already. But if they want me to rally the troops or do some romantic interlude with Katniss, they're going to be disappointed. I must be wearing my confusion on my face because my doctor smiles. "I don't think it will be too involved. Finnick and Cashmere are doing it as well."

Weird, neither of them mentioned it. I shrug my shoulders. "Okay, tell them I'm in."

...

When I arrive at the room where they're filming, Katniss' prep team is there to apply some "much needed" make-up and do my hair. They give me a fairly normal outfit to wear; it compliments Katniss' mockingjay outfit without making me look like an assassin. I see Cashmere talking with Plutarch, looking much better than I've seen her in days. Katniss' prep team must be over the moon to finally be going back to work. They do a good job of pretending that we haven't all been through the ringer in the past few weeks.

Finnick, Mrs. Everdeen, Beetee, Coin, and Gale round out the room, talking amongst themselves about the various riots and the preparations for the eventual attack on the Capitol.

The look on Cashmere's face is pained and she has a ghastly pale to her skin. I step over to them, and they cease speaking in hushed tones. I roll my eyes. "No secrets in the rabbit den," I remark in a sing-songy tone, pulling a smirk on to Cashmere's lips. I level my gaze at her, scrutinizing her countenance. "Are you okay?"

She sucks in a deep breath and nods. "Yes. I just want to get this over with."

They seat Katniss and I in chairs next to each other, and her hand falls into mine naturally. Katniss begins the propo, answering Cressida's questions about her role in the rebellion. She then turns to me. "Johanna, tell me what it was like in the Capitol."

I pull in a deep breath. "They put me in a comfortable room for three days. They fed me, clothed me, let me sleep in this gorgeous poster bed. My father would have loved the construction of it," I say with a smile. "Then Snow visited me. He told me that I was to film interviews with Caesar and get Katniss to convince you all to surrender."

Katniss squeezes my hand. I know all of this is news to her, but it feels good to say it out loud. "He told me that if I didn't, if I didn't comply, that he would kill my friend Violet and my father." Cressida's eyes narrow at the mention of Violet. "Violet was an Avox. She was the Avox charged to me when I was reaped, the first time. She was wonderful. If anyone embodied the hope for Panem, it was her. Her sister Yari was a victor who was bought and sold by the Capitol as a prostitute. When Violet went to retrieve her, she was caught and treated as a traitor. They cut her tongue and made her an Avox."

The anger inside me rises to the surface as I continue. "But Violet never gave up hope. When I brought her home with me, we learned to communicate. She told me about the Capitol and its horrors. But she also consoled me, loved me, and treated me like her own flesh and blood. I was just some stupid, broken girl and she helped put me back together. And she wanted nothing in return." I look directly at the camera. "I don't know if her family will see this, but know that she was truly loved and cared for. I will never, ever forget her compassion and her bravery. And I will never, ever forget that I am responsible for her death. I will always carry the lightness of her life and the heaviness of her death."

I let out a shaky breath, staring into Cressida's bright blue eyes as she nods for me to continue. "When my first interview didn't go well, he had her hanged in my room from the ceiling." I can hear the gasps of the people around me. My gaze hardens. "My best friend, my only friend, hanged in my bedroom, only a few feet from my bed. They never took her body out of the room. They let her rot there, her beautiful brown eyes bulging from their sockets. Her head nearly coming off from the weight of her body."

"After the second interview, they hung my father the same way." When I look over at Katniss, I can see the tears streaming freely down her face. My own sadness for this is gone. It's almost a relief to see someone mourning my father. Somebody has to since I'm apparently incapable of sadness. "I stayed in that room for days with their corpses. A reminder of my failure. And all I could think was that my only job was to protect the people I love. And I failed everyone."

"What happened next?" Cressida presses gently.

"They strapped me to a chair after I told you all about the bombings. They left me in a blank room, one arm attached to an IV, the other attached to morphling. Keeping me alive and sedated. But nothing mattered anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," I trail, looking around the room. "I can't describe it. It just felt like nothing was important anymore. Everything in this world felt like such bullshit. It first it was liberating, but then it was just ...nothing. And it won't stop. I couldn't feel sad for my father, for my friend, for Katniss, for Panem. I wasn't angry or happy or scared. I was nothing. Snow stole every inch of me in the Capitol. I wished ...I sometimes still wish, that he had just killed me."

I'm sure this isn't the uplifting propo they were looking for, but it feels cathartic to get this all out to someone besides my doctor. Katniss grabs my hand and squeezes it hard. I'm reminded of when I told her I should have died in the arena and she slapped me. Did she care for me then?

"I don't understand," Cressida says. "You felt nothing? Even after he killed everyone you loved? Knowing he was going to attack Thirteen, where your ...where Katniss was?"

I clench my free fist in anger. "I _wanted_ to feel those things. But one day they were just robbed from me. If someone robs you, you can't just get those things back. And people will say, oh just wish for them, and they'll come back. Think about them! Think about how other people have _less _than those things you have! But that's not it. They just don't exist anymore. I keep reaching for those things I lost, but they aren't there."

I look at Katniss, entwining our fingers and giving her a smile. "I'm taking my freedom from Snow. I have something, something real and tangible and not some stupidly abstract emotion, right here. I have Katniss. And within her, my freedom. I won't just be some orphan," I say, touching my father's ring that I had strung in a gold chain around my neck. "I won't be a failure to my friends." I look down at Peeta's token. I level my eyes at the camera. "I will be happy. I will be free."

Cressida nods and indicated that we're done, so I break away from Katniss and stand off to the side of the stage to make room for Finnick and Cashmere. I feel such a wave of relief to finally explain myself to everyone, and I hold hope that maybe Katniss gets it.

Finnick continues the propo by explaining about his forced prostitution. He explains how he, among many other victors, were forced to sell their bodies to depraved Capitol citizens. Cashmere slowly steps behind him and he takes her hand, giving her a nod of approval.

"When I won my games, I was fifteen. On my sixteenth birthday, when other girls are getting presents and going to dances, I was sent to the Capitol and told that if I didn't comply with Snow's rules, he'd have my brother killed. And he told my brother the same. We were forced to sell ourselves to many prominent Capitol citizens for money. But there's only so much money one person can have. Eventually, you trade in other things. Like secrets."

She goes on to explain how they would confess to her their sins, their transgressions against the Capitol and for the Capitol. "And you think it would end there?" she asks, letting out a laugh. "You think that he would stop at forcing me to sell myself, but no. Then he puts me and my brother back into the arena. But what he didn't know, was that I had sided with the rebels before we even got there. Gloss...hadn't."

Cashmere clears her throat, looking at me briefly before continuing. "I know a lot of you out there are fighting for your lives. And if what Finnick and I have told you haven't made you hate the Capitol, I don't know what will. But know this: I killed my own brother to help this rebellion." I can't help but open my mouth in shock, watching the blonde girl fearlessly tell her tale. "He wouldn't help me rescue Beetee and Wiress, and he was determined to kill Katniss and Johanna. I wouldn't let that happen. So I killed him. For my freedom. For _our_ freedom."

That explains the look Beetee gave Cashmere at the beach. Gloss was going to kill us. She had to kill her own brother, the only person she trusted and loved, for this rebellion. For Katniss and me.

When the cameras go off I rush toward her, throwing my arms around her in what is probably the largest show of affection I've had in a long time. I can see Katniss over Cashmere's shoulder, and in her eyes I can see her trying to calculate our relationship. For the moment, I don't care. I'm so damn impressed by this girl from One. She hugs me back tightly and I can feel the wetness of her tears against my ear. "You're really brave."

Cashmere laughs, pulling away from me and wiping the tears off her lightly-flushed cheeks. "Ha, thanks," she says, but there's no malice in her sarcastic tone. She peers over her shoulder at Katniss, who is now standing with her arms crossed, blatantly staring at us. Cashmere turns back to me with a smirk on her face. "Looks like your girlfriend is a little jealous."

I nod. "It's nice to see the shoe on the other foot, you know what I mean?" I reply, patting her on the shoulder. She and Finnick go over to Plutarch, who undoubtedly wants to know if they have other stories about the Capitol citizens. I make my way toward Katniss, who is biting the inside of her cheek as she waits for me. "Well now that you know what a pathetic loser I am, I'm sure you're glad you're not embroiled with me anymore."

Katniss shakes her head. "I've been so overwhelmed by all these things they've been having me do...I didn't even notice you were different," she admits softly. "I'm so, so sorry, Johanna. I'm sorry about your father, and your friend. About what they did to you. I'm sorry I was too self-absorbed to notice. I feel like such an ass."

"Pity isn't going to help," I reply, shrugging my shoulders. "Or your self-loathing." I pause, taking in a deep breath. "I was just worried you wouldn't want to ..." Now it's my turn to be embarrassed. I cast my gaze to the floor, scratching the back of my neck. "I was worried you wouldn't want to be with me like this. I was worried you never wanted to be with me at all."

Katniss purses her lips and takes my hand in hers. She leads me out of the room and away from the crowds of people, until we find an unpopulated hallway. She takes my other hand, standing in front of me. "I know that things haven't always been ...clear between us. When you kissed me before we tried to eat the berries, I didn't know how to react. I - I had never been kissed before. Especially not like _that_."

"I know."

She frees one of my hands to run it through my hair, smiling shyly at me. "I didn't know how to deal with everything. With Snow, and Peeta, and Gale..." I feel my jaw clench, and so can Katniss because her hand is cupping my face. She smiles broadly at me. "But the most confusing thing of all was you. Every time we talked or-or kissed, I couldn't figure you out. I didn't know how to feel because I didn't know ..how much of this was for the rebellion."

I smirk, placing my hands on her hips and urging her forward until both my hands are clasped around the small of her back. "Not a single fucking moment." Her eyes narrow momentarily in confusion, then open wide in realization. She surges forward, throwing her arms around my neck and pressing our bodies together as her lips meet mine.

I gasp into her mouth, pressing the tips of my fingers firmly into the flesh of her hips and pulling her even closer to me. The air is heady as her kiss pushes heat from my body. Her tongue darts out experimentally against my lip and I moan and coax it into my mouth, massaging it with my own. I hear her let out a small whimper and it sends a jolt through my body straight between my thighs. I'm kissing Katniss Everdeen, and she's kissing me, and there's literally nothing in this world that feels better than this.

I take a few steps forward and grin as I hear her gasp as her back hits the wall. We break for a brief moment, her grey eyes almost feral as they look into mine. A moan escapes my lips at the sight, capturing her mouth in another heated kiss. Her hands move from around my neck to the tops of my breasts, finding purchase somewhere on the front of my blouse. She grips the material and whirls us around, using her grip to press me harder against the cold slate.

"Fuck." I whisper into her mouth, feeling those lips curl into a grin. She uses her strength to pull me away from the wall and deepen the kiss, and then to press me against it hard again. The sensation of the unforgiving, cold wall against Katniss' soft, warm body is making my head spin. Her teeth tug at my lips hungrily, and I feel the coppery taste of blood in my mouth, but I don't mind. Oddly enough it serves to turn me on more. I rake my short fingernails underneath her top, eliciting the most wonderful, guttural moan from the other girl.

Taking her by the hand I lead her through the corridors until I find mine and Cashmere's compartment. I close the door behind me, pressing back against it as I watch her appraise our room. It's pretty barren, with the exception of a few empty vials of morphling under Cashmere's bed. They've been cutting her off but she somehow still sneaks one every now and then. Can't say I blame her.

Before I can say anything Katniss turns on her heel and pushes our bodies together once more, punishing my lips in a searing kiss. The desire, the full-on hunger I can feel from her is intoxicating. For the first time, I know that this desire is for me. It's not for the Capitol, it's not for the rebellion, it's for me. Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, mockingjay, whatever you want to call her, is moaning into my mouth because of how she feels about me.

My hands move like they're possessed, unzipping her outfit and tossing it on the floor. I run my hands along the newly exposed skin of her sternum and abdomen, tracing the muscles as they flex beneath my touch. Even being buried in this hole, her skin is darkened like she's been hunting in the sun. I free her hair from the complicated bun they had it in, running my fingers through it as I untangle the locks.

Her shoes and pants are quickly discarded and soon I have her undergarment-clad body laying on my bed, arching her back as I run my hands along her skin. It feels so amazing to actually _feel _her, I almost don't know what to do. The past almost two years, I have done nothing but love this girl, this beautiful girl who is panting my name breathlessly. To finally have her is pumping a dangerous cocktail of emotions through my veins. I trace my fingertips over every inch of skin I can find, trying to memorize it like a map. Every curve, every vein, every faint scar like topography I examine and taste and touch. I simply cannot get enough.

I lay my body over hers, pressing my thigh against her center. Her eyes fly open in surprise, either at the feeling it makes or the action I'm not sure, and she looks at me with unbridled desire. Her hand wraps around the base of my neck and she pulls me down for another kiss, using her free hand to reach under my shirt and claw at my stomach.

The sensation causes me to moan into the kiss, and it emboldens her to continue raking her nails on my skin, around to my back. Her wet lips haul across my cheek, running her tongue along my jaw. Luckily for both of us, the Capitol makes their make-up taste good. The powder they used on my face tastes almost like cinnamon and I taste it on Katniss' tongue when she kisses me. I lose all coherent thought when she moves her lips to my neck, placing hot, wet, open-mouthed kisses on my jugular. I'm sure she can feel the rapid palpitations of my heart. She clamps her teeth on my skin, tugging and licking on my pulse point.

I growl in pleasure, pushing her back on to the bed with force. She chuckles lowly as she hits the mattress, wrapping her thigh around mine and pushing me against her body. She uses this leverage to flip me on to my back, hovering her face over mine. "Too many clothes," she says hoarsely, pulling the sides of my blouse and breaking the buttons off. They spray over the bed and on to the floor. I lean up, capturing her lips in a kiss as she pulls off my blouse and tosses it behind her. She unzips my pants, roughly tugging them down my legs, my panties with them.

"Now _you're _wearing too much clothes," I reply huskily, and before I can even manage a smirk unclasps her bra and nearly rips off her underwear. Suddenly she's naked. Katniss Everdeen. _My _Katniss Everdeen, naked, straddling my waist. Without warning, tears spring into the corners of my eyes. She's so breathtakingly beautiful that I'm suddenly drowning in the few emotions I've been able to muster up.

She bends down to kiss me, but notices my tears and her desire-filled orbs suddenly become awash with worry. "Are you okay?" I nod weakly, reaching my hands up to tuck her hair behind both of her ears. I'm overwhelmed with how I feel for her, and apparently, that means I'm going to cry. "Do you want to stop?" I shake my head fervently and she smiles down at me. She wraps her hands around my neck, untying Violet's tie and my father's ring. She places it on my nightstand. She takes Peeta's token off my wrist, placing it gently atop the others. "No one owns you, Johanna. You are no one's failure. You're not just an orphan."

I lean up and kiss her gently, feeling the soft implore of her lips against mine. I open my eyes, staring into her grey hues that are gazing back with such an intensity it makes my stomach flip. "What am I, then?"

She bits her lower lip, the corners of her mouth turning upward. "You're just you. Johanna Mason. Beautiful, brave Johanna Mason from District Seven. With zero patience but a full heart. A victor." She kisses me. "A friend." Another kiss.

"A lover?" I ask playfully, kissing the top of her nose. She blushes prettily and ducks her head, taking her bottom lip between her teeth. She nods and begins kissing down my neck again, her pink tongue darting out to swipe at the salty sweat on my skin. She presses her lips on my collarbone, taking the tight skin there between her lips and sucking. I let out something betwixt a moan and a gasp and I see her roll her eyes back in pleasure. She slowly licks the small hurt, pausing as she reaches my breasts. She takes the darkened nub into her mouth, swirling her tongue around it slowly. I hiss in gratification, my back arching in search of more contact.

She sits up, both her hands massaging my breasts as her hips grind against my center, her head thrown back in delight. I've never seen anything so blatantly sexy in my life and I have to bite my lip to keep from groaning in pleasure. I rest my hands in her hips, digging my nails into the soft flesh of her flanks. The friction of the juncture between her legs against mine is almost enough to send me over the edge. Sharp waves of excitement roll from the tips of my fingers to my toes. "Fuck, Katniss," I hiss, and she levels her gaze at me.

With a smirk she smoothly moves down my body, wrapping her arms around my thighs and digging into the tops of them with her nails. She kisses the inner flesh of my thighs, dragging her wet lips along my skin until her face is hovered over my most intimate area. I have to stop myself from grabbing her hair and forcing her down on me.

Her tongue swipes along my slit and I let out a loud gasp. My head drops back on to the pillow with a thump, my hands gripping the sides of it. Her tongue works slowly, swirling around my outer lips, deliberately licking up all the arousal that has spilled from inside me. Or possibly because she isn't sure what she's doing. But from the jolts of pleasure running through my body, she's doing just fine. Her lips find their way to my clit and she wraps them around it.

"Holy shit." Every inch of my skin is in fire as she flicks her tongue around the nub, rolling her tongue inside me. Her hands drift up to my sides, scratching her nails across my abdomen. I can feel the pressure building inside my stomach, coiling into my center. She begins to rock her entire body as she sucks hard on my clit. "Oh my god." I can barely manage words as her ministrations begin to push me over the edge. Both my hands grip her hair, holding her in place as I am rocked with orgasm, my hips bucking off the bed.

As the ebbs of pleasure roll through me I let go of her hair, smoothing it with my fingers. Katniss leans up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The sight makes me groan, and her nervous smile turns into an all-out grin. "C'mere you," I beckon. She stretches out on top of me, nestling her head in the crook of my shoulder. She lets out a contented sigh, her fingers trailing along the sweat-soaked skin of my stomach and sides.

"That was fucking incredible," I breathe out, kissing the top of Katniss' forehead. The air smells of sweat, sugar and sex and it's quite possibly the best smell in the entire world.

"Really?" I nod and she smiles into my skin, kissing the skin where she is laying. I duck my head down and capture her lips, tasting myself on her tongue. It's amazingly erotic and stokes the flame inside my belly. I wrap my leg around her legs, pulling her closer to me. I run my hands from her hair, down her arms, dragging my nails along the sensitive skin of the inside of her arms. My mouth stays on hers, smothering her moans as I pinch her nipple gently.

I place my one hand around her head, cradling her skull as turn her on to her back and run my other hand down her abdomen. Her skin flexes and quivers at my touch, revealing taut abdomen muscles. I trace them with my fingertips, marveling at the beauty of her physique. My fingers travel down her skin, dragging my nails along her thighs. She presses into me, arching her back as I avoid her center all together.

She grunts in frustration and I kiss her lips chastely. I move my lips to her cheek, then to her ear. She gasps loudly as I take her earlobe between my teeth, swirling my tongue around her earring and along the outer rim of her ear. I keep my free hand hovering just above her slit, running my fingertips along the outside, coating my hand in her wetness. She whimpers as I blow hot breath against her ear.

Apparently not one to wait, she places her hand on top of mine and pushes me inside her. Both of us begin pushing gently between her labia, my lips never moving from her ear. Her hand comes up to grab my hair, holding my face next to hers. Both of our mouths are next to each other's ears, and my head is filled with the sound of her desperate panting.

I very gingerly push inside her, bottoming out my two fingers against her. She lets out a short shriek and begins rocking her hips, desperate for rhythm. I pull my thumb up, feathering it lightly across her clit as I continue to push inside her. Her soaked walls clench around me with every thrust, getting used to the intrusion with every push. Her hands grip my back, her fingers pushed into my skin so hard I'm sure there are going to be marks.

My thumb presses against her clit more fervently, rubbing small circles on the bundle of nerves. My name begins pouring from her lips like a tribal chant, directly into my ear. I can feel my own arousal seeping from inside me just at the sound of her voice. Her nails dig in harder as I quicken my pace, curling my fingers slightly against her walls. Between the sounds of her breath and the soft click of my fingers inside her, I'm going crazy with need.

A slow shudder starts in her body until she's practically convulsing in my arms, her walls pushing against me so hard in climax it's almost painful. Her eyes lock with mine as she comes and the look of utter adoration in them is almost too much for me to bear. I use her wetness coating my fingers and gently rub her clit with my fingertips. The onslaught of pleasure makes her breath come in short, wonderful gasps. It doesn't take long before her teeth clamp down on my shoulder, biting me hard as another orgasm spreads through her body.

Satisfied I remove my fingers from between her legs, bringing them to my lips to slowly place them in my mouth and suck them dry. Katniss glares at me so I wink at her playfully. She drops back on to the bed, her chest heaving. The way the lights from outside are ricocheting off her sweaty skin is quite possibly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I've seen my fair share of sunrises and sunsets, crashing waves and tall trees, snow-capped mountains and rolling plains; I've seen more beautiful women and men in this past year than most people see in a lifetime. But never have I seen something so indescribably magnificent as Katniss is right now, glowing from sex and breathless from the physical exertion. It's almost a validation of my very existence. I exist in this moment so I can appreciate this beautiful girl.

I wrap my arm around her midsection, my thigh pressing (not so) innocently against her center. She pushes hair from my face, a warm smile on her lips. "You forgot what else I am," I say, smirking at her. "Besides a great lay."

She rolls her eyes and swats me with her hand. "And what's that?"

I lean up, pressing my lips against her ear. "Yours."

* * *

**A/N: I would have posted this yesterday buuuut I got tickets to the Bruins-Canadiens game and we won and the rest of the night was a total blur. Guys and gals, your comments? You're all out of this fucking world. I can't even tell you how much it means to me that you all are enjoying this story.**

**To the person who has suffered from depression, thank you for your extremely kind words of encouragement. Depression isn't easy, and even though I chose to have Johanna go through it, I'm not confident in my ability to write someone so strong-willed being so lost. I really appreciate that you think I wrote it well enough.**


	14. About time, brainless

The warmth in my bed from the night before has vanished when I open my eyes the following morning. Katniss and I had spent the better part of the night alternating between hot bouts of passion and deep sleeps. Early in the morning I fell asleep for the night, and now, she was gone. I blink hard, rubbing my eyes and grimacing at the black mascara that wipes off on to my hand. I mumble some curses under my breath and sit up, stretching my arms as my sheets fall to my waist.

The wolf whistle from the other side of the room broke me from my stupor, and I turn my head in that direction. Cashmere was sitting up on her bed, her back against the wall, her feet dangling over the bed. She isn't dressed for training, which is odd. Instead she's wearing a thin white tank top and a pair of what I assume are the men's shorts, rolled up by the waistband so they barely cover her thighs. Her hair as gained back its original luster, curling naturally down her shoulders. I must look confused because she looks down at my body, then back up at my eyes with a raised eyebrow. "Sleeping Beauty finally awakens. Must have been _quite _a night."

I don't even bother to cover myself. Cashmere has seen me naked plenty of times. Besides, after all the make-up and sweat that was licked off my body, I'm in desperate need of a shower. I groan as my feet hit the ground, pulling my arm across my chest to stretch it out. I ignore her snide remark and head to the washroom. I turn the silver dials on the wall, still surprised at the immediacy of the hot water that hits me. The warm water feels amazing against my skin, the cinnamon and clover gel washing away the dried saliva, sex, make-up, and sweat that coated my body. I emerge from the bathroom in a plume of steam, quickly dressing in our soldier's uniform as Cashmere watches from her perch on her bed.

I stick my arm in the hole in the wall for my schedule, and only a few things print:

07:00-12:00 - _REST_

13:00 - _REPORT TO COMPARTMENT 311 FOR DRESSING_

16:00 - _WEDDING_

Rest? I look back at Cashmere, who grins with a large glass bottle of some off-color liquid in her hands. When she pulls the cork off with her teeth, the sharp scent of alcohol fills the air and she spits the cork on to the floor. "You weren't the only one having a big night last night." I raise my eyebrow. "Finnick proposed to Annie. They're having a day of rest to celebrate, followed by a wedding tonight." She takes a big swig of the liquid, shuddering as it goes down her throat.

I pick up my pillow and toss it at her. "And you were going to let me sleep through it?" I place my arms on my hips and stare down at the contemptuous blonde.

She catches the pillow, placing it in her lap. I sit down next to her, scooting until my back is against the wall like hers. "I'm sure your _beloved _will be here soon enough with the news." I look over toward my empty bed wistfully. "She left early this morning when I got in here. Thankfully Hawthorne has an extra bed." My eyes scan across the room to her, where she looks over to me. "And extra liquor." I snatch the bottle from her and down some of the liquid, grimacing as it burns my throat.

It's not hard to put two and two together. Gale's love of Katniss is unquestionable, so I'm sure knowing I was having what he'd never have was upsetting. Funny how I can't seem to care about it though. Cashmere on the other hand, well, I guess she's grown fond of me. What a bizarre sight that must have been - a poor miner-turned-soldier from Twelve and a spoiled victor-turned-rebel commiserating over some terrible medicine cabinet hooch. What I would have given to be a fly on that wall.

Except not last night. There's no where in the world I would have rather been than exactly where I was. "She said something about a meeting with Coin." I nod my head, running my fingers through my damp hair. I must still look unsatisfied because the blonde girl smirks. "She'll be back. She didn't say how long she'd be gone, but to be honest, I don't think she likes me very much so she wasn't too keen on sharing." Cashmere scrunches her nose at that thought. "Wonder why?"

We both laugh, easing into a comfortable silence. After a very long lull filled with just the passing back-and-forth of the alcohol, Cashmere turns to me. "So how was it? Was it all you'd thought it would be and more? Did little birdies fly in the window and sing to you? Did the moonlight hit just right?"

I take another swig of the liquid, the hard alcohol going down much easier now. I harden my gaze at her. "Why? Want to live vicariously?" I tease. Cashmere sticks her tongue out at me and shakes her head.

"If I wanted to live vicariously, I'd have asked the mockingjay, darling," she replies, nudging me in the shoulder with her own. "I'm your friend, and this is what girl friends do."

"Is it? I've never had any girl friends before." My words come out in a bit of a slur, my mind a bit fuzzed from the hard drink.

Cashmere rolls her eyes. "Surprise of the year." She raises the bottle in the air. "To Annie and Finnick, may their love never die, and somehow flourish even in this depressing hellhole." I roll my eyes at her cheesy toast, but we both drink the liquor anyway. "And to Katniss and Johanna, may they take their vanilla sex into another compartment so I can sleep!"

She finishes off the liquor, wiping her mouth with her hand and tossing the bottle on to the floor. My jaw slacks in offense. "_Vanilla_?"

Cashmere nods enthusiastically. "It doesn't take a fucking scientist to know that was Twelve's first time." The flush on my cheeks, even over the already reddened skin, is an obvious indicator that she is right. "I knew it. So it's Everdeen's first time, and you're not about to do anything to jeopardize this thing you've been waiting for forever. So you take off her clothes, you kiss her, you gently hold her and run your fingers all over that precious body you've just been _aching _to touch." She runs her fingers along the inside of my outfit's lapels, smirking smugly at me.

"Fuck off."

She shakes her head. "Not when it's getting good. So who was on top? I mean, the educated guess is you, right? More experience, a little more forceful, you're kind of a bitch. Bitches top." She takes me by the lapels and thumps back on to her bed, pulling me on top of her. I brace myself on either side of her, propping myself up with my palms. "But. You've been pining for this girl for so long, and she's had her head up her ass until last night that she probably thought she should show you. Show you that she likes you, too."

With surprising agility she turns us over so she's on top of me, her hands pinning my wrists against the bed. "Hm," she muses, canting her head to the side. She lets my hands go. "I'm sure she didn't hold you back. She wanted you to touch her. You touched her. Slowly." Without her help I run my hands along her sides, feeling the heat of her skin through her shirt. When my eyes fall on her face, her lips are parted and her eyes are closed. She bites her lip and looks down at me, her hips grinding in a very subtle rhythm against mine. My hands move similarly to how they did last night. I find myself running my fingertips along Cashmere's stomach, and I feel her shudder as I coax my hand beneath her shirt and feel smooth skin.

She runs her hand through her hair, tucking it behind her neck. She leans down, hovering her lips just an inch away from mine. I can smell, almost taste, the hard liquor on her breath. The blonde moves her head so she's parallel with mine, eerily similar to how Katniss held her mouth to my ear last night. "If there's one thing I know, Jo, it's sex. So let's see. Now she probably has no idea what's going on, but she's not an idiot. Does she use her fingers?" Cashmere's hand snakes between my legs and a soft moan escapes my lips as she grabs my crotch.

"I'm gonna doubt it. I'm gonna say she used her tongue." She flicks her tongue against my earlobe, then pulls back her head and levels her gaze at me. "Am I right?"

"Yes," I whisper, unable at this point to lie or change the subject. Somewhere in the back of my mind, this feels wrong. I know this is wrong. But somehow, guilt has not come back to me yet. My moral compass is still fucked up. Because right now, what I feel is pleasure, and I want to enjoy it.

She grins. "Thought so. And then what? And then you -"

I interrupt her by flipping her on to her back and she lets out a gasp of surprise. "And then I fucked her," I explain, pressing the tips of my fingers against her center through her shorts gently. I can feel the heat and dampness through the fabric and I grin. She takes her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes rolling back. I lean my head down to her ear. "And she came so hard I thought she was going to take my fingers off." Cashmere grunts, her hips moving almost on their own accord against my fingers, practically begging for contact. I slide my hand up slightly, pressing where I believe her clit is. The sharp inhale is my indicator that I'm right. "And then I made her climax again, which is how I got this." I remove my hand from between her legs to pull my uniform aside, revealing the small bruise on my shoulder from where Katniss had bit down.

Cashmere lifts herself up slightly, gazing into my eyes as she leans down, pressing her lips against the purple mark. It feels like all the heat from the room is now just circulating between us as I wind my fingers through her hair. She lifts her bright green eyes up, staring into my brown ones. "Things would have gone a little differently if it had been me," she breathes out, her warm breath bouncing off my skin.

She grins as I look down at her, our lips a mere breath apart. "Show me," I challenge, my eyebrow raised up as far as it can go. Within a blink her eyes go from innocent to deadly, her hand coming around the back of my neck.

Before she can pull us together a loud knock at the door makes us fly apart, and I lose my balance and fall off the bed. "Johanna?" Cashmere and I lock eyes as we both recognize the voice: Katniss. The reality of what I was about to do, what we were both about to do, settles around us and drains the alcohol from my system. The look on Cashmere's face, pure guilt, is almost enough for me to feel it, too.

I scramble to my feet, walking to the door and opening it wide. Katniss is there, looking radiant as always, smiling as her eyes meet mine. What I wouldn't give to be the person that always puts that smile on her face. She peers over my shoulder, eyeing Cashmere who has luckily repositioned herself casually against her bed. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Nope." I lead her into the room, closing the door behind her. "She was just telling me about Finnick's wedding. I'm so happy for them," I explain with a smile. Katniss nods, her eyes never leaving Cashmere. The tension in the room is so unbearably awkward _I _want to leave.

"Yeah, I told her when I was leaving this morning and we ran into each other." Cashmere nods. "She volunteered to help set up for tonight." Katniss pauses, canting her head to the side as she stares the blonde down. "I thought she'd be gone by now." The ice behind Katniss tone practically cools off the heat that had permeated the room just moments earlier.

Cashmere gets the hint and stands up, stretching her limbs. I watch her muscular form move. Katniss shoots me a look so I avert my eyes elsewhere - the window! - until she's done with her stretch. "Well I guess I'll go get changed." She purses her lips as she walks toward the door. "And get these shorts back to Hawthorne." She flashes Katniss a smug smirk before exiting the room.

I can see Katniss tense, but she relaxes as she turns to me. Her lips lift into a smile as she circles her arms around my waist, pulling me close and taking my lips into a kiss. Something about kissing Katniss that makes the entire world come to a halt. My entire body gets ridiculously warm. And every kiss - from that first one in the arena in what seems like another life, to this one - has an electric undercurrent to it that rattles me to my very core.

"Good morning to you too," I say as she lets my lips go, raising my eyebrow. She doesn't miss the underlying accusation in my tone and smiles, tucking my fringe behind my ear.

"I'm sorry. The 'mockingjay' is high in demand these days." I roll my eyes and she kisses me again. "It was hard. You've always been very cute when you sleep." I roll my eyes once more, but my blush betrays me and Katniss chuckles. "Don't worry, _District Seven_, I won't let it get around that you're an adorable cuddler."

My jaw opens in protest. "You better watch that gorgeous mouth."

Katniss' eyes go aflame. "Or what?"

"Or you'll be in trouble."

Her lips curl slowly into a catlike grin. "Like I couldn't take you."

I swipe the few things on my end table on to the floor and lift her by her backside, propping her up on the table. Her back hits the wall as I stand between her legs, gripping the back of her neck with my hand and tugging her bottom lip with my teeth. She snarls into my mouth, grabbing a fistful of my hair as she deepens our kiss. A low moan escapes from the back of my throat. I flatten my tongue against her neck, running a line from the center of her throat to her chin, punctuating the move with a hard kiss on her mouth.

Roughly I palm her breasts through the material of her shirt, swallowing her moans of pleasure into my mouth. I move my hands down to the waistband of her casual cotton pants, thankful for the easy drawstring. I pull the knot free in one movement, grabbing at the elastic band of her pants and loosening their grip on her waist. Just to be a tease, I drag my fingernails across her pelvis, just a few inches above where I know she wants me.

She glares at me, but the look is tempered by the whimper that comes out of her mouth at my touch. I lean forward to kiss her, using her temporarily distracted state to slip my hand beneath her waistband and slide inside her within a few seconds. She gasps and rocks her hips forward, eagerly awaiting the rhythm of my fingers. She moves her hips forward a bit as I push my fingers into her wetness.

I thrust inside her as hard as I can, rewarded with a sharp gasp that turns into a drawn-out moan. The sound of the table hitting the wall with every thrust of my fingers and my thigh behind it I'm sure can be heard outside the compartment. But I don't care. If they could see what I see - Katniss' body helplessly rocking against my hand, one hand gripping the side of the table, the other in my hair, and her teeth clenched in both pleasure and concentration - they wouldn't stop either. I drag my lips to her ear as I feel her begin to tighten up against my fingers.

"I want to taste you."

The low moan I get in response is enough consent for me. I pick her up underneath her thighs, her legs wrapping instinctively around my waist. I press her lips to mine as I spin us around, tossing her cross-ways on my bed. I kneel down on the floor, wasting no time before I pull her pants to her ankles and spread her legs and lips apart to dip my tongue inside her.

"Oh my god," she groans, tossing her head back in pleasure. I grin into her sex, drinking in every ounce of her arousal that spills around her center. She tastes salty and sweet; probably the best thing I've ever put on my tongue in my entire life. I swirl my tongue inside her, drawing shapes and rolling it against her clit slowly.

Her body begins a slow tremor, her thighs clenching sporadically as I massage her center with my tongue. I press my lips against her bundle of nerves, sucking hard. My chin and fingers become covered in her arousal as she climaxes, the heels of her boots digging into my back. As her muscles relax I run my tongue along her folds, relishing the taste and feeling of her arousal in my mouth.

I sit back on my haunches, using the inside of my shirt to wipe my mouth and chin. Katniss lays back on the bed, the top of her head brushing against the wall, her pants still unceremoniously around her ankles. It's so fucking sexy I want to ravage her again; knowing her stamina, she'd probably go for it.

Unfortunately her communicuff goes off and she stares down at it. "Damnit." She looks at me, pouting her lower lip. "We have to go get ready for tonight." I stand up as Katniss does so, pulling her pants up and tying the drawstring. She steps toward me, wrapping her arms around my neck. Her body is pressed against mine, which is doing nothing for the ache between my legs. She must sense my frustration because she leans forward and kisses my lips, my cheek, my jaw, my nose. "I will make it up to you, Jo."

"Oh I'm counting on it babe." Taking my hand in hers we exit the compartment and make our way toward the prep team's staging area.

* * *

Finnick's wedding is beautiful. Everyone from Thirteen and Twelve have pitched in, decorating the main hall in beautiful nets and sparkling decor reminiscent of a shimmering beach in Four. Annie has one of the dresses that had been made for Katniss by Cinna: a soft robin's egg blue number with sparkling gems on the hem. Finnick dressed in a smart, pure-white suit with a blue rose in his lapel that perfectly complements her dress. But most importantly, they radiate a happiness and joy that is like an airborne virus, infecting everyone in the room. Even Coin seems to have a genuine smile on her face. Cressida and Plutarch are off to the side, filming the event with huge grins on their faces as well.

Katniss looks out of this world. Her dress is strapless and black, made of a material that shimmers a bright orange when it catches the light. Her hair is left down in her signature braid, tossed over her shoulder with a few stray stands of hair framing her face. Her face looks natural - just the hint of gold and orange eyeshadow and pink lipsticker. They have me in a deep forest green dress that hugs every curve on my body. I practically had to be sown into it when they put it on me. My eyes are done in their typical black winged eyeliner, coal black eyeshadow darkening my eyes.

Haymitch somehow snuck alcohol in and generously dispenses it to those of us of age. Within just a few hours, there is such joviality in the room it's like everyone is drunk, regardless of age. Gale is dancing with Katniss in a traditional Twelve square dance that a few other people knew. Watching Prim dance with her mother, Cashmere dance with some boy from Thirteen, and even Haymitch in the corner with a smile, I feel an overwhelming euphoria come over me. I don't know if it's the mood in the room or the copious amounts of alcohol I've consumed, but it practically knocks me off my feet with its intensity.

My doctor said the feelings would come back slowly, maybe even one by one.. But he didn't say that'd hit like a tsunami when they did.

I haven't been able to completely feel happiness in a while and now I feel like I'm bursting with it. I grab Cressida by both her hands and despite her objections I manage to pull her on to the dance floor, copying the movements of everyone else. I place my hand around her waist, hers over my shoulder, and our other two hands clasped out to the side. In spite of herself, the strawberry blonde-haired woman moves easily in rhythm, her bright blue eyes twinkling as we spin around on the dance floor.

She leans into me. "Dance with Katniss. I want Snow to see it." I nod my head and we make our way toward Katniss and Gale. Cressida lets go of me to grab Cashmere and pull her over. "Okay, you dance with Gale. I'm gonna sit this next one out."

I take Katniss by the hand, pulling her body close to mine. Cressida must tell the musicians what to play because they slow the music down. Katniss rests her chin on my shoulder, our bodies moving together in a subtle minuet. She pulls her face back, her nose almost bumping mine as we continue to dance across a now cleared dance floor. While Katniss is turned from them I see Gale and Cashmere take a shot together, and the blonde raises her empty shot glass to me.

We continue to move together across the floor, my hand wrapped around the small of her back, hers around my neck, our eyes locked to each other. The way her body fits with mine, it's almost like kismet that we were reaped together. What would my life be without her? Myself and my father, living under the oppressive thumb of the Capitol in Seven. I'd be married off to some local carpenter or lumberjack, pop out a few kids that probably would get reaped as well.

I'd have my father, but I wouldn't have the light of my life that makes the day worth living. She isn't just the 'girl on fire' to me - she's the sun, flaming brightly and coloring my world.

Would we know that we were missing something? Would I live my life thinking that there was just one piece missing, not knowing that somewhere across the country there was a girl with hunting boots on and her bow drawn, aimed to kill who held my heart? And if we passed each other casually - could I look into those grey eyes and just _know_ that somewhere inside her, a piece of me was buried there?

Cressida makes a motion off-camera for everyone to fill in the empty space and they do, quietly separating into partners and joining us on the dance floor. Katniss and I don't stop moving, our eyes glued to each other. Our foreheads press together, and I know that there must be the world's dorkiest smile on my lips because I am delirious with happiness.

"I love you," Katniss whispers, a tiny, lopsided grin forming on her face.

Still in my euphoric haze, I manage to be slightly snarky. "I know," I reply, sticking my tongue out.

She rolls her eyes and pulls back slightly, pushing my hair out of my face and gazing into my eyes intensely. "No, you don't." I furrow my eyebrows in confusion for a moment as she sucks in a deep breath. "I mean I'm _in love _with you, Johanna."

I stop dancing, my body frozen from her confession. At first she looks worried, a small crease forming on her forehead, but slowly I drop my hands from her waist and cup them around her face. I trace her jaw with both of my thumbs, as if she was some precious relic I'd uncovered in the desert. Once my brain has settled this information - _oh my god she loves me - _I grin as wide as I can. "About time, brainless."

* * *

**A/N: Well the Bruins lost and are out of the playoffs so life is terrible. On the bright side, I got this chapter done? ALSO that's the first time I've used brainless. :D WOW 100 followers, holy fuck. Each and every one of you are wonderful. Thank you all for your constant reviews and follows. It's ALMOST enough to make me less sad over my Bruins...**

**To the wonderful person who asked for Foxface fic - I would not be opposed to a Foxface/Katniss piece in the future, even if it was a one-shot. We'll see if I have time one this is up. I'm taking a neurobiology class over the summer that will probably kick my ass.**

**To the other wonderful person who commented on my depiction of depression: Thank you. I know nothing of the illness other than the straight biology of it, so I dug around the internet for some inspiration and I'm glad it came across okay. :)**

**And to Cody: I won't let Violet die, really. Ever. I'm attached to the memory of her character so she'll always be a part of this incarnation of Johanna.**

**Okay it's 1am, I'm going to bed. Enjoy and let me know what you guys think!**


	15. A break between storms

One of the many things about depression that is bothersome is the fact that when I wake up, I immediately know what kind of day I'm going to have. There's no surprises, no sunny turn of events; I wake up and I either never want to leave my bed, or I'm so psyched to start the day I can barely wait to throw the blankets off.

Today is one of the bad ones. It's been about a week since the wedding, and things with Katniss have been surprisingly good. After she told me she loved me, I locked Cashmere out of our compartment and we spent the night together. That night had been different than any other we'd had. It felt like every touch, kiss, movement was laced with a deep-seated love and passion that sucked every ounce of energy from my body, in a good way. I also got to wake up with her wrapped around my body, so all in all, it was probably the best night of my life.

Today, of course, she's not here. They have been ramping up the preparations for the final storm of the Capitol, and Katniss' input is evidently helpful. I have not been involved in anything other than my single propo, since it's only been in recent weeks that I've even been cleared for action anyway. Besides, the general idea of taking directions and proper planning chafes me. So she's not here as I open my eyes harsh lights inside the compartment, and immediately decide today is not a day I'm going to wake up.

On these days, it's like there's heavy weight on my chest and it's too much for me to even lift my head off the pillow. The medication doesn't do anything, unfortunately. It means I have more good days than bad, but days like today are the worst. Every negative thought I've ever had streams through my head - and sleep is no reprieve. It's filled with nightmares of the arena. And worse than that are the voices of the people I've let die. I think of Blight a lot. I wonder what he would tell me if he could see me now.

The darkened parts of my brain are sure that he would be angry with me, infuriated that I was wasting my precious life sitting in bed, wanting to die. Not really die, I guess, just ...cease to exist. The other, more rational part of me knows he would understand. I miss him.

A rhythmic knocking at my door startles me. I pull the blankets over my head and mumble a 'go away' at the door, but the knocking continues. I hear it open and close, and the shuffle of footsteps before the intruder sits down on the edge of my bed. But the smell of lavender and smoke lets me know who it is: Katniss.

I peer out from underneath my blankets. "Is the Mockingjay done with her good deeds for the day?"

She leans over and pulls the blanket down to my shoulders, kissing me soundly and tucking my hair behind my ear. "All yours."

I let out a small snort and roll my eyes. "Lucky you."

Katniss raises her eyebrow at me. "I know that was sarcasm, but it doesn't make it any less true." She kicks off her boots and stretches out her body next to mine, snuggling into my blanket and tossing her leg over my body. "Not a good day?"

I shake my head. "Nope."

We lie together on the bed, staring up at the cement ceiling. Well, I'm staring up at the ceiling, but I can feel Katniss' eyes watching me. We have had a lot of action in our lives, so these still times are ones we cherish as well. Not typically my thing, but with Katniss, any contact is appreciated and welcome. "My mother had a lot of days like this. Weeks, even."

I shift so we're facing each other, my hand tracing lines up and down her left arm. Her eyes flutter closed at the brushing of my fingers on her skin, but she opens them again. "After my father died it was like she shut down. A part of her died, too, I guess. But I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how she felt shut off from everything when we were right there. Me and Prim, right there, waiting for her to tell us how to do live life. But she couldn't. She didn't know how."

Her eyes search mine briefly, then she clears her throat and continues. "So I picked up the pieces. Starting hunting, made friends with Gale. I tried to get back to normal because she wasn't going to do it. And some days she would look totally happy, and I'd think maybe she was going to be the same again. But the next day I'd go to wake her up and it was like trying to move a mountain. It only took two times before I realized her happy days were not a sign of things to come. A day of sunshine does not mean a year of sunshine - it just means a break between the storms."

She sighs, her eyes looking faraway as I'm sure her brain conjures up images of her mother back in the days before our reaping. The Mrs. Everdeen I've come to know is a strong but clearly pained woman, buoyed by Prim and Katniss and her love of healing. And now, after finding someone I want to spend my life with, and knowing what a constant struggle depression is, do I fully understand who she is as a whole. A part of her did die with Mr. Everdeen, in spite of her daughters. Every day is a struggle, but finding the light in your life can sometimes be worth it.

"I don't want to put you through that again," I tell her softly, looking down guiltily toward the blanket. I don't want to be the reason Katniss' life is a struggle - I want to be the reason her life is wonderful. At least part of the reason.

She smiles at me, placing her head next to mine on the pillow so our foreheads touch gently. "If I wanted a lifetime of sunshine, I never could have fallen in love with you." A look of confusion - or possibly displeasure - crosses my face and she kisses the tip of my nose. "You are the most incredible person I've ever known, but you're an absolute hurricane most of the time, you know that?"

"Was there a compliment somewhere in there?" I tease, pinching her hips through the soft cotton fabric of her jumpsuit.

She nods. "_My_ little hurricane." She snuggles closer to me, lifting up my head with hers and tucking her face into my neck. She peppers light kisses along my jugular, warming my body with just the gentlest of touches. "Dangerous, unpredictable, beautiful." Her warm breath washes over my skin as she pushes her lips against my cheek, moving slowly to my lips. She hovers her mouth above mine, slowly licking her pink lips in anticipation. "_Mine_."

I reach up to run my fingers through her hair, tangling them with a flick of my wrist and tugging gently on them. Of all the things Katniss does that drives me crazy, being possessive is top among them. Katniss whimpers, slowly sucking on my lower lip, giving it a brief bite with her teeth. A hunger builds inside my stomach, unrelated to the fact that I haven't eaten yet today.

I toss my blankets toward my feet and push myself on top of her. I stare down into her beautiful grey eyes that are full with desire and a tenderness that flips my stomach and sends a hard shudder down my spine. I see the same hunger in her that I feel inside, and as she runs her fingers along the hem of my top before pulling it off, I grin.

Maybe today won't be as bad as I thought it would be.

* * *

"We need three victors to go," Coin explains calmly, looking toward Katniss and I. "We are sending Cressida, Boggs, Pollux, Castor, Gale, and three of you. There will be another small team behind you, ensuring your safety. Whoever goes is entirely up to you, but I'd prefer if Beetee stays here with me, interrupting Snow's feeds as you travel. And I'd prefer if Katniss went, for obvious reasons."

I snort. "If she goes, I go." The brunette shares a small smile with me. A lot has changed since the moment we first uttered those words, but the sentiment never has.

Coin smiles tightly. "I figured you'd say that." Katniss takes my hand in hers, gripping mine tightly. Finnick and Cashmere look at each other.

"Don't worry about it, newlywed. I don't have anyone waiting for me. I'll go," Cashmere volunteers, patting Finnick on the back.

"You don't have to," he replies, his voice soft. "I'd like a chance to avenge what he did to me. And to Annie."

Cashmere shakes her head. "Let me do this." They exchange a knowing look and the matter seems to be resolved. She looks over at Coin. "So you got three gorgeous women going to the Capitol. Happy now?"

Plutarch chuckles, shaking his white hair. "Thank you. We don't anticipate too much trouble. You'll just be going to some abandoned city blocks, taking some shots and returning so they can claim the Capitol. The B team will provide support, and Boggs will take point. He'll be equipped with a Holo, which will help guide you in case there are some unactivated traps."

Katniss and I nod, sharing a quick look that does not go unnoticed by Coin. "You are not to deviate from the plan," she adds, leveling her gaze at Katniss and I. "You are there for moral support only."

Cashmere rolls her eyes. "Got it, we're the eye candy. Loud and clear. So when do we do this?"

"Tomorrow. A hovercraft will take you to our rebel base in One, just outside of the Capitol." The table in front of us lights up as a digital map of Panem. Districts are marked in various colors, with big red splotches to indicate where the rebels had taken over. I hadn't been privy to any of the rebel's movements; I studied the map intensely, my eyes quickly finding my own large district. There were many red spots on the map, mostly on the border of Seven and the Capitol. There was a large range of mountains that separated them, with two underground tunnels. It seemed that the tunnels were now under rebel control. Seven wasn't necessary for the Capitol, really. They would make do without new furniture and firewood. Paper was almost not completely necessary, either. I hoped this meant there wasn't a lot of death there.

I resolved to eventually get back to Seven. Eventually I would need to face the demon of an empty house. Sort through my father's things, through Violet's. I also needed to get to Eleven and pay a visit to Violet's family, if they were still alive. The large black marks on Twelve and Eleven seemed to indicate massive destruction. Eight and parts of Four took beatings, too. Hopefully Violet's family was spared - with one daughter a sex slave and the other a mutilated servant, now deceased - they deserved a loosening of the cruel grip of fate.

When I came back into the conversation, Coin was busy using her finger to trace a blue line of their movement in the Capitol. They were going to enter in One, then slowly make their way toward about four square miles of abandoned Capitol housing. They would shoot propos as Cressida deemed fit, then be transported back to Thirteen whilst the rest of the team carried forward, rendezvousing with the other rebels, capturing the mansion and the Capitol's main justice center.

"So when do we kill this fucker?" I ask, looking around the room. I find a smirk on Cashmere's face, and a bit of concern on Haymitch's. I look over at Katniss, who suddenly looks very uneasy.

Coin takes a moment to appraise the situation. "When Katniss agreed to be our Mockingjay, she did it under what we called the Mockingjay agreement. She would support our cause and be our symbol, in exchange for the safety and immunity of anyone being held prisoner in the Capitol at the time. Namely you, Cashmere, and Annie Cresta. In accordance with that, I told her that when the time came to ...eliminate President Snow, I'd flip her for it."

She pauses, looking strangely smug at how offended I look. "Of course, it isn't exactly befitting of a new leader to personally assassinate the older one, so I intend on letting Miss Everdeen do the honors."

"Wait a fucking second," I interrupt, backing away from the table and from Katniss. "That man is the fucking reason everyone I have ever loved is dead, aside from the people present in this goddamn room and _she _gets to kill him?" I'm practically shrieking now, my fists clenched at my sides, shaking in rage. "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

Katniss looks at me helplessly, a mixture of worry, guilt, and sadness in her eyes. "Johanna, I made the agreement to make sure you guys weren't treated as criminals if you gave up information while you were.." She struggles to finish her sentence.

"While we were tortured, _Mockingjay_, just say it," Cashmere sneers, placing her hands on her hips. As I meet her gaze she looks just as incensed as I do. She has suffered just as much as I have under Snow's regime.

"Yes, thank you," Katniss bites out, glaring over at the blonde.

"Well isn't that just fucking wonderful?" I pose sarcastically, looking around the room at the faces of the other rebels. Everyone here as a reason to want to be the one to murder Snow, I understand that. But I feel like I suffered the most. I deserve this. "I'm so glad I can go on this potentially deadly mission so I can be a fucking ornament for this cause that my only family _died _for."

I storm out of the room, slamming the door behind me. I don't even know where to go; the compartment seems stifling at the moment. Everywhere in this well of grey and sterility seems stifling. So I go passed the training area and grab a few axes, then ascend the few flights of stairs until I reach the outside.

The sun is high and bright, pushing through the large, fluffy clouds that dot the sky. I wander passed the field into the edge of the woods, quickly trying to lose myself within the dense forest. The axes I brought I remove from my pants, gripping them tightly in my palms. I spin them around at my sides, aching to toss them into anything, or anyone.

Why wouldn't she tell me? And how dare she think she reserves the right to eliminate Snow? He stole everything that meant anything to me. Katniss has her family. Sure he had a vice-grip on her life for a while, but she is so thoroughly protected now, it doesn't matter. She still has a mother and a sister and her best friend. I have nothing except her. I suppose I have Cashmere, and even Finnick. Hell, even Haymitch could be considered a friend. But this lingering depression that sits on me like a pressing weight on my brain is his fault. Every emotion he stole from me that I'm trying to get back, I deserve to smash his skull in for each one.

After I feel like I'm far enough away, I use my ax to climb one of the larger trees until I'm sitting so far up I fear the branches aren't stable enough to hold me. The breeze blows coolly up here, rustling the scent of the tree into my nostrils. It's almost like being home up this close to the sky. My mother taught me how to climb trees when I was small, using an ax to gain leverage to get to the highest branches. We'd sit up there for hours when my dad was away, and she'd sing to me and sometimes even get the stray mockingjays to pick up her tune.

"What the fuck did you descend from monkeys, Mason? How did you get up there?" The voice calls from around the middle of the tree. As I look down I see Cashmere attempting to scale the tree, slipping on the bark and overall failing miserably. "God what were you a cat in another life?"

I let out a soft chuckle, swinging my legs on the branch I was hoisted on. "Aw, do they not teach you Climbing 101 in One? Just 'How To Look Effortlessly Gorgeous While Slitting A Throat'?"

Cashmere finally lifts herself to the branch about a foot lower than mine. She looks at the ground warily. Once she feels confident in her position, her back resting against the trunk of the tree, she looks up at me. "We don't need classes on that, baby. It's all in the genetics."

I roll my eyes, staring at her while she watches the ground. "Are you afraid of heights?" She doesn't respond immediately and I peel off a cackle. "Oh my god you are." I see her sparkling green eyes glare up at me and I can't help but grin. "That's adorable."

"Fuck off. At least I don't storm out of meetings and embarrass myself."

The smile drops from my face as I look away from her and out into the clear blue sky. I remember one of my favorite childhood stories of a princess who was a prisoner in a big tower, until one day she discovered her secret ability to ride the clouds like dragons. She escaped her tower and spent her life riding the dragon clouds, visiting faraway lands and ruling her lands with her army of fire-breathing cloud dragons.

Since then I've always surreptitiously looked for clouds that look like dragons. Even when I got older and knew better, I couldn't help but try to find shapes in the clouds. I'm doing that now as I sit high in the tree, trying to ignore Cashmere's snide remark. "Look, you acted like a crazy person in there and you owe Katniss an apology."

"Are you joking?"

"You don't need to explain it to me, kid, I get it. You lost a lot of people because of that white-haired son of a bitch. So did I. But Katniss worked under the thought process that she may never see you again. If the roles were reversed, wouldn't you want to ensure you got revenge for her?"

Her logic is sound and I want to kick her in the face because of it. I know I overreacted; I'm not exactly famous for my even temper. _Hurricane_. I'm mostly just angry that Katniss hadn't even mentioned it. "She didn't even say anything."

Cashmere scoffs. "What would she say, Johanna? Come on. Cut the girl a break. I know that the past year or so has been hard on you, but it's been hard on her too." Off my annoyed glare she shrugs. "Look I'm not in the Katniss Everdeen Fan Club. But I can see how much she loves you. It's sickeningly obvious. Like bordering on actually disgusting."

"Thank you?"

"You're welcome." I slide down the tree trunk, easily plunking myself on the same branch Cashmere's on, sitting in front of her outstretched legs. The branches bends a little beneath our weight, but holds tightly enough. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Have you ever held your tongue before?" I ask sarcastically, sticking my tongue out at the blonde.

"Har har." She clears her throat, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. Her perfect row of white teeth grasp her lower lip, looking at me through half-lidded eyes. "Gale told me about when Snow came to see you in Seven and told you he agreed to keep Gale safe if Katniss married him." My fingers tense around the branch of the tree. "How did you ...deal with that?" My questioning gaze frustrates her and she rolls her eyes. "You thought she would go home and marry this guy that she clearly had feelings for, at least at some point in her life. How did you cope with knowing she was going to love someone else?"

I pause on that for a moment, blowing air out of my mouth and up toward my bangs. "I drank a lot." Cashmere chuckles and shakes her head. "Like Haymitch a lot. I talked to my dad a little, but mostly to Violet. It was really painful for a while." She nods her head. "But then the Quarter Quell was announced and ...well, my mentor made me realize what an idiot I was being."

"Because you were going to die so who cares?"

"No. Because life is really fucking short. That I shouldn't let Snow or anything else get in my way because I had something a lot of people don't: a chance to be with the person I love."

I begin scaling down the tree, safely on the ground within a matter of seconds. I look up into the giant oak, watching with a small grin as the blonde ungracefully descends the tree. She might be spectacularly athletic, but she lacks a little bit of grace. She wraps her legs around the trunk as she slides down, landing unsteadily on her feet. The blonde turns, smiling triumphantly. As she steps forward she trips on an exposed root, stumbling directly into me. I brace her weight, feeling the press of her warm body against mine as she tries to regain her balance.

As she flicks her penetrating green eyes up to me, a rueful smile appears on her lips. "Hm. He was right, you know. A lot of people don't get the chance to be with the person they love." She backs away only a few inches, affectionately tucking hair behind my ear. "I never will."

A woman as beautiful and interesting as Cashmere, I'm surprised to hear her say that. The look of surprise must be apparent on my face because she rolls her eyes as she steps around me and back toward Thirteen. "Why not?" I call, turning around only when I hear her footsteps stop.

She bites the inside of her cheek before crossing the few steps back toward me and aiming her penetrating gaze into my eyes. "Because you are incapable of loving anyone else, Mason." She pauses, looking down at the soft grass beneath our feet and back up to me. "And so am I."

* * *

Cressida breaks down how the shots will go as our hovercraft zooms above the clouds, passing over the districts below us with such speed they aren't even distinguishable from the small windows above the seats. Katniss and I are to be side-by-side for a lot of it - capitalizing on our 'ax and arrow' reputation. I haven't been much use in all the propos so I'm feeling a bit restrained under the direction.

Katniss senses my frustration and takes my hand between both of her own, rubbing it gently. "It's okay, I'll be there the whole time," she whispers into my ear, kissing my earlobe.

My eyes inadvertently find Cashmere's as Katniss whispers something else into my ear and the blonde smiles at me, but it doesn't reach her eyes. She looks away and back toward Cressida in the center of the room. I turn back to Katniss, kissing her on the temple as we listen closely to Cressida's lecture on how to conduct ourselves when we're on the ground.

...

As the hovercraft lands on the streets of One, I watch Cashmere as we disembark. She immediately recognizes the area, speaking in low tones to Boggs and Gale as she points out several of what I assume are important landmarks.

Katniss takes me by the hand as we group together with the 'B' Team and begin our march toward the Capitol. Everyone is mostly silent, with the exception of Cressida and Cashmere, who chat about seeing familiar places in both One and in the Capitol. We enter the tunnels between One and the Capitol, crossing them with a quickened pace. No one likes to be holed up; we've had enough of that back in Thirteen.

Soon enough we are in the Capitol proper, surrounded by tall, brightly colored apartments that look eerily deserted. We each raise our rifles and walk more slowly as Boggs leads us with the Holo open.

"Well this doesn't scream 'trap' at all," Cashmere notes from the front, aiming her rifle down the abandoned street. I have to agree - it seems too quiet, _too _deserted, if something could be described as such.

Cressida shakes her head. "They don't know we're here. There would be no reason for a trap."

"There doesn't have to be a den of rabbits to set down a snare," Gale says quietly, his sights aimed down as we go through the streets. Everyone begins to walk even more slowly.

One Boggs indicates that all the traps have been deactivated, Cressida begins setting us up for some shots. Katniss and I stand back-to-back, flanked by Gale on one side and Cashmere on the other. While Gale isn't a victor, he will certainly be recognizable to the people of Panem as the boy who saved Twelve - or at least, saved a lot of Twelve. He was fighting with Katniss in Two as well. But of course the significance of how we're standing - Cashmere watching my back, Gale watching Katniss', and Katniss and I looking out for each other - does not go unnoticed by me.

And by the slightly amused look on Cressida's face, it was intentional. We begin shooting at fake enemies on rooftops, moving in synchronicity down one of the blocks. We do the shoot about four of five times before Cressida is satisfied with the angles Castor and Pollux have gotten. She begins talking with Boggs to set up another, and the four of us stand off to the side, awaiting direction.

I sit down against one of the brick buildings, resting my elbows on my knees. Cashmere takes out one of her weapons - an ax - and begins twirling it around. "Look at that, Mason. I finally mastered some of your moves." She twirls the ax around commendably, not with the practiced ease that I do, but with enough to not look foolish.

"Not any of my good ones, but yeah, some."

Gale chuckles at Cashmere's display, while Katniss merely rolls her eyes and waits impatiently off to the side. The blonde continues her moves down the block a little, slicing and hacking at invisible enemies. I watch her closely, laughing at her attempt at showing me up. Until I see it. The faint glimmer in the sky that looks familiar, but I can't place it until I hear the loud zap.

A force field. She hits it so hard with her ax that she flies backward about ten feet, landing with a thud on to the pavement. I'm up so fast I almost get a head rush. I run over to her as I see the B Squad begin tossing things into the force field to try and determine where it begins and ends. My knees hit the ground next to her, my ear presses against her chest.

Nothing.

"Fuck fuck fuck." Panic rises in my throat as I look at her, motionless with black marks all over her exposed skin. Cressida pushes me away and I land on my backside, as she begins pushing on Cashmere's chest. She pinches her nose and blows air into her lungs, then puts her ear down to her chest. She continues this for what seems like hours, but was probably around two minutes. "Don't you fucking die on me." I think it's Cressida saying this, until I realize that it's me. She's pretty much the only friend I have left, and my mind is spinning with the thought of losing someone else.

Finally Cashmere sucks in a deep breath, and Cressida wipes sweat from her forehead as the blonde slowly returns to consciousness. "Mason?" Her voice croaks out and I push myself forward, landing on my knees beside her. I brush some hair from her face and try and manage a smile down at her. When her eyes finally focus and see me, she looks worried. "There's a force field."

I let out a relieved laugh and nod. "Yeah, idiot, you just axed it and almost got yourself killed." Her eyebrows furrow in confusion as she tries to regain all her senses. Everyone seems to move away from us, joining the squad in figuring out how to deactivate the field. Everyone except Katniss, who stands behind me, watching.

"C'mon, let's get you inside." I slide my arms underneath her head and her knees, lifting her up with all the strength I can muster. I walk to the nearest apartment, kicking in the door and finding a living room area where I set her down on a plush, neon green couch. "Why don't you try and rest, okay?" I ask, smoothing her hair on her head.

She nods weakly, almost immediately succumbing to sleep after murmuring, "Don't leave," in a quiet voice that sounds more like a child than I've ever heard. I sit on the floor with my back against the couch, drooping my head tiredly.

Katniss stands in the doorway, her rifle up in her hands. "I didn't know you guys were so close." The way she says it, like an accusation, makes my eyes narrow.

"She's the only friend I've got."

Katniss rolls her eyes. "I'm your friend, too."

I cant my head to the side. "You're my everything," I reply, and she smiles at me, "but she's different." Her smile drops. "She doesn't have anyone else, okay? I know what that's like. Please don't be jealous, it's really stupid."

The brunette lets out a short laugh. "You were jealous of Gale."

"That was different."

"How was that different?"

"Because he's in love with you."

Katniss scoffs. "And you think she's not in love with you?" Before I can reply Gale walks in the door, looking between the three of us. From the flush in Katniss' cheeks it's pretty clear she's upset.

"Cressida says we're going to stop for the night until we can figure out where the force field begins and ends. Shouldn't take long. We're going to sleep in shifts. She said that we should sleep first, then we can take over in a couple of hours. Give her some time to rest," he explains, nodding his head toward Cashmere.

I take my rifle off from my body and lay it down next to my outstretched legs. I roll my neck and try to get comfortable with my head resting on Cashmere's thigh as she sleeps. Katniss glares down at me. "You're going to sleep down here? I'm sure there are bedrooms."

"I'm not exactly thrilled about getting comfortable in someone else's house." Gale seems to understand my sentiment and makes himself comfortable on the floor near the window, propping his back up against the wall.

"Fine."

It what seems like a very deliberate move, Katniss takes off her rifle and settles herself near Gale, resting her head on _his _leg. His eyes lock with mine and he gives me a wide-eyed, innocent look. I roll my eyes at the gesture and glare down at Katniss, who narrows her gaze at me before closing her eyes entirely.

The most awkward sleepover of all time.

* * *

**A/N: Guysssss it makes me so happy to see people responding to this story! And how positively you're responding to Cashmere! Mwuahaha. Conflicting emotions, you shall have. I love all your reviews, it is wicked helpful (and entertaining) when I'm writing the next chapter.**

**To the person who read the last chapter in class: sorrynotsorry. ;)**


	16. Lie to me

Cressida kicks me gently with the tip of her boot to wake me up, jostling me from a dreamless sleep. I look across the room bleary-eyed at Katniss, who is still sleeping on Gale's leg. Her jealousy from earlier that day comes flooding back to me and makes me scowl at them.

The half-shaved blonde woman above me cannot suppress a dimpled smirk at how we're positioned. Cashmere rolled on her side facing out, her arm over my shoulder, my head against her thigh. Gale is still propped up against the wall beneath the window, Katniss snuggled into his waist.

"Get up, Twelve," I holler across the room, startling the grey-eyed duo awake. Katniss wipes saliva from her mouth and has the decency to look embarrassed at how close she was to Gale. I hear a 'fuck off' getting murmured behind me and Cashmere turns on her other side to face the sofa. I groggily get to my feet, pulling my rifle back over my shoulder and letting it hang at my side.

"Whose shift is it?" Gale asks, rubbing his eyes and shaking his dark brown hair.

"No time. We have to cover more blocks before tomorrow night." Before she can say anything else the television in the room blares on, the trumpets from the Capitol bursting through the speakers. "Automatic," Cressida says calmly. "No one lives here. But the televisions always play emergency broadcasts."

President Snow's face comes on the holographic screen, projecting him high up into the room. He reports on the outstanding morale of the Capitol Peacekeepers, to which Cressida laughs, and the unknown whereabouts of Katniss and I. As his voice fills the room I see Cashmere begin to stir and mumble something under her breath.

It's only until she lets out a long scream that I realize she's saying "No," "Don't," and "Please stop," over and over and over again. I bend down to her side as I hear static coming through the TV, cupping her face between my hands and trying to gently release her from her nightmare. Something about his voice is clearly a trigger for her, it hurts my heart to think of the torture she went through because of this rebellion, because of me.

Beetee comes on the screen behind us, with Finnick and Haymitch, showing our propo we filmed earlier today. As I look quickly behind me I see a shot of us sleeping, and I turn my head slowly to glare at Cressida. They conclude with more information about the rebel strongholds, encouraging people to hang on because we were fighting for them.

When Snow's face comes back on the screen, he is clearly shocked. He begins to speak again, and Cashmere, in her groggy state, begins to panic once more. I get up and pick up the small receiver, tossing it hard against the wall. It shatters and his voice ceases, and the blonde shoots up awake, her chest heaving heavily from the nightmare she was in.

As she looks around the room at everyone staring at her and she grumbles, "Well that was embarrassing."

I let out a chuckle, handing the blonde her rifle and helping her stand up. "No one in this room can claim they haven't had a nightmare before," Katniss says from across the room, offering Cashmere what seems like a genuine smile.

She returns it and the room gets really awkward for a few beats before Cressida sucks in a deep breath. "Okay then, we're just going to push forward. Boggs has the locations of the next few streets. We disabled the force field last night." She looks to Cashmere. "I'm sorry you had to hit that, but it was extremely helpful."

Cashmere smirks and runs her fingers through her hair. "Glad I could be of service, as always."

...

It's a few miles downtown when I realize we are no longer being tailed by the "B" Squad. Apparently Coin had sent them somewhere else to be of service, instructing Cressida to get just a few more shots, then take us back to Thirteen. Katniss and I exchange knowing glances when Boggs and Cressida's backs are turned.

We are going to kill Snow.

She falls in step next to me as Cashmere chats with Cressida, and Gale with Boggs. "When should we split off? Tonight?"

The brunette looks up at me, quirking her eyebrow. "You're willing to leave her behind?" She doesn't have to be specific about the 'her' for me to know she's talking about Cashmere. My thoroughly annoyed look tempers her and she looks to the ground. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about before, too. I'm sorry I got jealous. It's just..."

"You don't have to explain it to me." I understand jealousy.

"No, I do," she says, taking my elbow and stopping our walking. "I've just been so confused about how I feel about you for so long ..and now that I know what I feel, it's sometimes scary. Scary how much I rely on you. It's frightening to me how much I need you. How much I love you... I've never been dependent on anyone before, except maybe Gale, but that's not like this. I'm afraid you're one day just going to realize I'm not everything you think I am. I'm just me. I'm not some leggy, insanely athletic marble statue of a woman."

I run my fingers through the errant strands of hair that haven't been pulled back into her braid and smile at her. "I have been in love with you, and only you, since the day we met, brainless." She blushes prettily and I have to resist the urge to kiss her right there, in the middle of the street. "I can't even imagine loving anyone else. No matter what they look like. Nobody will ever, ever be you. And you're pretty much all I need."

Katniss doesn't resist her urge and she wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me down into a forceful kiss. It goes on for a few moments until I hear Cressida clear her throat loudly, looking at us with a half-amused smile. "Did you get that?" she asks Pollux, who nods. She looks back toward us. "Okay then that's enough, lovebirds. Nobody wants to lose their lunch."

I roll my eyes and share a look with Katniss before we fall in behind them, making our way through the streets of the Capitol.

* * *

We break for dinner in another abandoned apartment, which conveniently has some stocked food. After we've all eaten we agree to sleep in shifts - Gale, Katniss, Boggs, and Cashmere in one, Cressida, Pollux, Castor and I in the other. We sleep first, since the other three haven't had a good sleep in days. When we awaken the other four go to sleep, only a few hours before sunrise. Castor absent-mindedly plucks a small fiddle he found on the ground as he and Pollux communicate with each other. I watch, wistfully reminded of how I use to communicate with Violet.

Pollux notices me staring and makes a motion to me and I smile. _I know you know what I'm saying._

"Violet was a great communicator. Just goes to show you how impotent the Capitol is. Cut out her tongue, she still was as eloquent as anyone I'd ever met."

_When this is over, you could help people like me. Help other people understand._

"Are there really that many Avoxes?"

Castor shakes his head. "No, but it would help other people, too. The deaf, the mute. There's not a lot of people who can translate like you and I can. And I don't have the notoriety you do."

"I'd be up for it," I reply with a smile. "What else am I gonna do with my life?"

"Keep your girlfriend away from your other girlfriend," Cressida mumbles with a grin on her face. Castor chuckles and Pollux tries to pull his lips into a line, but he smiles anyway, in spite of himself. I glare over at her and she grins even wider. "I'm sorry. This has been just so unexpectedly interesting."

"Hah. You're lucky I like you."

Cressida raises her eyebrow. "Not too much, I hope. I don't want to be on the receiving end of the Mockingjay's bow and arrow." Castor chuckles again. "Or her death glare."

I ignore her remark and cross the room to grab the fiddle from Castor, returning to my seat next to Cressida. I begin to play out a tune my father used to play a lot. Because of his trade as a carpenter, he was oftentimes leased out to other districts, where he would always learn a new song and teach it to me. This one was one of his favorites, though I never knew what district it was from.

_Are you, are you, coming to the tree?  
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.  
Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be  
if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree._

_Are you, are you coming to the tree?  
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee?  
Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be  
if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree._

As I close my eyes and tilt my head back, I try and remember my father's voice singing this song. I almost don't realize someone else is singing as I'm so lost in my own brain, searching for what his voice used to sound like. But when I open my eyes, Katniss sits on my lap next to where I'm lazily plucking the fiddle, singing the last two verses with me.

_Are you, are you coming to the tree?  
Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free?  
Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be  
if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.  
_

_Are you, are you coming to the tree?  
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me?  
Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be,  
if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree._

To my embarrassment, everyone is awake now, and Pollux and Castor were filming us. Our voices sound so interesting together, much different than my father and I, or my mother and father. We sound like waves crashing on a shore next to a bonfire. Complementary, but different. It makes me smile until I see the tears in Katniss' eyes. "What's wrong?"

"How do you know that song?" Katniss whispers, wiping her tears from her face embarrassedly.

"My dad would sing it a lot," I explain, placing the fiddle on the ground. "Usually he'd tell me where the songs are from, but he didn't with that one. I'm guessing it's from Twelve." Katniss nods, leaning down to kiss me gently. We share a moment as she gazes into my eyes. We share a pain - our fathers. We share a lingering sentiment that is reflected in that song - if you go, I go. If I had any doubt of Katniss' love, it would be erased by the look in her eyes, like I'm the best thing she's ever set her eyes upon.

Cressida stands, clearing her throat as she looks toward Boggs. "I think we ought to tell them now." Both of us turn our gaze toward the blonde, who's mouth curves into a sideways smile. "We're going to infiltrate Snow's mansion and capture him ourselves."

"Fuck yeah that's what I'm talking about!" Cashmere cheers from across the room, raising her rifle in the air. Cressida runs her tongue along her teeth to suppress a bigger smile. She takes her communicuff and removes it from her wrist, dropping it on the carpet at our feet. Boggs does the same with his, then Pollux, Castor and Gale follow.

Cressida aims her blue gaze at us with a smile. "So no need to run off, girls. We're in this together."

* * *

Once we meet up with the rebels, it doesn't take long for the justice center to fall. Snow is transferred to one of the holding cells that Cashmere and I were left in, awaiting his execution. Coin, Plutarch and the rest of the team from Thirteen are on their way to the Capitol, so the rest of us bide our time exploring the justice center.

I have other plans. Plans I formed in my brain when Snow hanged Violet and my father in my room. Plans that until a day or two ago, I didn't think I'd be lucky enough see come to fruition. But I don't believe in luck - luck is opportunity mixed with hard work. And I have worked very hard for this moment.

It takes me a while to find her - he has her pretty well hidden, of course. But once they do, the look in the eyes of the guards stationed outside Snow's room say it all - they think I'm crazy. I probably am. If I thought it was a good idea, I'd have told Katniss. Or Cressida. Or Coin. But instead, I relied upon a few people I could buy off to find me the one person who could hurt Snow the most - his granddaughter.

She hasn't stopped crying since they picked her up and it's beginning to get on my nerves. She's a pretty little thing; she looks almost like Katniss' sister Prim. Long blonde hair pulled back into a braid, bright blue eyes and a small button nose.

Katniss comes running down the hallway just as I reach the outside of Snow's cell. "Johanna!" she calls breathlessly, stopping short just before myself and the blonde girl. "Johanna what are you doing?"

I raise my eyebrow. The way her panicked eyes go to the sobbing girl, to me, to the knife tucked into my belt, tells me she knows the answer to that question even before I open my mouth. "Getting even."

"Killing an innocent child is not revenge. It's murder. She hasn't done anything wrong."

My eyes light up in anger. "And what did my father do? Hm? Violet? Peeta? Your father? Rue?" Katniss rubs her forehead, then places both her hands on her temples. "You're going to kill him and that's amazing, truly. But death is not suffering." I step closer to her, my face menacingly close to hers. "I need him to suffer, Katniss."

She is not fazed by the intense desperation in my eyes. She's appalled. She steps back from me, shaking her head. "I won't let you do this."

"You don't get a choice," I spit back, tightening my grip on the little girl's shoulder. "You don't just get to decide everything for everyone, Katniss! Okay? I have followed you along like the fucking kicked puppy I am since the day we met." Her eyes enlarge in surprise, but I can't take back my words now. Instead I soften my voice a little as I see the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. "I have done everything for you. Every choice I made since the day you got on that stage has been to try and protect you, to love you, to get you to love me. I did what was best for you."

I look down at the girl, whose height barely reaches my hips and sigh. "But this isn't for you. This is for me." My eyes travel back up to Katniss, where I can only painfully find confusion and bewilderment. "I have to do this for me."

"Murdering children will not bring your father back. Or mine. It just makes you a murderer." Her voice is quiet, but desperate. She doesn't care about this little girl, no matter how similar to Prim she looks with her braided blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She's worried about me. Touching, but unnecessary.

"I'm already a murderer, Katniss."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it? What about Cato? Clove? What about all the Peacekeepers on the way in here? They had lives, families, loved ones back home hoping they'd make it. I snuffed out their lives. Without remorse. I think that qualifies me as a murderer," I reply sardonically, tilting my head to the side.

"This isn't who you are, Johanna," Katniss say quietly, shaking her head. "You're not without compassion. I have seen you." She brings her eyes up the length of my body, aiming her steely gaze directly at me. "I have seen you weep for people who barely knew because of how unfair the world is. Because you were upset that people so innocent, so kind, could be struck down. You've always been a champion of the helpless. And now look at you. I don't even know who this is."

"Is that what this is about?" I ask through my teeth. "Because you don't like this side of me? Well grow the fuck up, Katniss. You said it yourself. I'm _dangerous_. I'm _unpredictable_. I am all of those things and I am a killer. I'm sorry I don't fit into whatever little mould you had for me, but this _is _who I am."

Katniss shakes her head. "I don't believe that. I believe that deep down, you know this is wrong and you don't want to do this. I believe that you're a good person. And I know it's hard now because you don't have all those emotions back but Johanna, you have to know this is wrong."

I let out a long sigh, nodding to the guard to open the door. Katniss looks at them with unbelieving eyes and I shrug. "I have to do this. Even if it means losing you." I can't disguise the hurt in my eyes as I say the words, or the painful lump in my throat as I see Katniss' tears fall freely as I walk into Snow's cell and close the door behind me.

...

"What do you think you're doing?" Snow asks, standing up from his bed. He's shackled to the feet of the bed, his hands handcuffed together. I drag a chair to the middle of the room, just as he did to me, and shove the girl into the seat. The seat is just within his reach and he touches her knee.

"She's pretty, Snow." I circle the chair, tilting my head toward her. "Uncorrupted." I harden my gaze at the white-haired man. "Sit down," I bark, and he slowly complies. He looks pretty beaten up - I guess a few of the rebels had fun kicking him around when he surrendered. "How old are you, sweetheart?" I ask, bending down to look her in the eyes.

"T-ten," she stutters, whimpering as more tears fall on to her pretty face, tracing down to stain her pretty white dress.

"Ten, wow," I say, nodding my head. "Do you know what the Hunger Games are?" She nods her head slowly. "Have you watched them?" She nods again. "Good. So you know that in two years, if you had been born where I was born, you would have put your name in that bowl. And maybe some weird looking lady would call it out. And within just a few days, you'd be dead." I twirl some of her blonde hair in my fingers. "A pretty little thing like you...pampered and weak? Dead within a few minutes."

She shudders as I let her hair go, looking over at Snow. He is practically shivering in fear and I am so perversely turned on I can barely keep my hands from shaking. "Your grandfather is afraid, little dove. Do you know why?"

The little girl nods her head again. "Because they're going to kill him."

"No," I reply. "Because he thinks I'm going to kill you." I bend down in front of her, crouching next to the chair. "See, a few months ago, I was in this cell because I was captured by your grandfather. He wanted to make Katniss Everdeen sad. And when I didn't make her sad enough, he murdered my best friend and my father. In a room just like this one." I look around at the walls, eerily similar to the ones from my imprisonment.

"You're gonna hurt me because he hurt your daddy?"

I shrug. "Well I don't know. That's all up to your grandfather here." I look over at Snow, tilting my head to the side. "I'm going to ask him to do one thing for me. And if he does it well enough, then I will let you walk out of here. Not a hair harmed on your little head."

"Anything," Snow says immediately, looking from the little girl to me.

I grin. "Okay." At this point, I could ask for whatever I wanted. Money, an apology, some grand gesture on his part before the execution. I could have him admit publicly to everyone all the terrible things he did. Tell him to tell Coin he wants a trial to confess all his sins.

But that's not what I want. "Beg." Off his confused look I glare harder at him. "Beg for her life. And if you beg hard enough, maybe I'll spare her."

So he does. As I circle her chair he pleads for mercy. He tells me where the bodies of Violet and my father are - not burned, but crated somewhere in the Capitol. He begs to my conscience, to my sense of reason. Surely I can't take the life of an innocent child for the sins of her family. I must be more reasonable. If not, I'm the same monster he is.

What he doesn't know, is that I _am _the same monster he is. I have no conscience, no reason. He stole my ability to empathize when he made me watch my own father decompose. I have no sympathy for this sniveling child sitting in the chair. If she was reaped two years from now, it would be some poor kid from my district's job to kill her because of him.

When he looks practically exhausted, I tip her chair on its back legs and bring her just out of his reach. I pull her hair over the back of the chair, letting the long braid hang over the material. "That was quite a show," I say finally, standing behind her. I place my hands on the back of the chair. "But it wasn't good enough."

Before he can even open his mouth I have brandished a knife and I slice the girl's throat, letting the blood spill out on to her dress and drip on to the floor. Snow lets out a muffled cry of grief, straining against his chains to reach her. Her body slumps forward so I pull it back, making sure her head faces Snow as she coughs blood and bleeds from her neck.

Once she's done coughing and I'm sure she's dead, I stick the knife into her throat and break off the blade from the hilt. I drop the hilt at Snow's feet. He picks it up slowly, his hands covered in his granddaughter's blood.

The symbolism is not lost on him.

* * *

I'm arrested pretty soon after I leave Snow's cell. Once Coin arrived and heard I had murdered Snow's granddaughter, I was immediately taken away and locked in one of the bedrooms to await my own trial. But it didn't matter. Katniss was going to kill him. I had made him suffer first. I made him sit in that room watching his only family choke on her own blood and see the life ebb from her.

I did it for people who never would have agreed to it. I did it for my mother, Peeta, Rue, my father, Violet, Blight, Mags, everyone. Every wonderful, kind soul that had perished because of him and never would have dared hold that blade for his or herself. I know they wouldn't be proud - I didn't do it for their pride in me. I did it for me.

I'm under guard surveillance 24/7, considered 'volatile,' 'dangerous,' and 'mentally unstable.' I am most certainly all of those things, but I don't feel them anymore. Getting justice for the people I love has sucked the anger from my body. Snow will be dead soon, if he isn't already. There will be no more Hunger Games anymore. No more children getting murdered. His granddaughter will be the last one. She'll be the last child ever murdered in Panem because of him and his Hunger Games.

* * *

A few days later I'm on a hovercraft going back to Thirteen with Cashmere, Haymitch, Beetee and a few other Thirteen natives. I was "officially pardoned" by Coin - evidently because Katniss begged for it - but as punishment I was not allowed to stay for the execution. They didn't want any "distractions." The rest of them came back with me because their duties were done. Although I think Haymitch was there to make sure I went back at all.

Life is simple. I get up and I see the doctor, eat breakfast, go for a run with Cashmere, eat lunch, do some reading, eat dinner, and go to bed. Cashmere doesn't ask me any questions about what happened - unlike Katniss, she doesn't have some notion of me being some kind of defender of the helpless. She knows what it's like to be an indiscriminate killer, and if she has any judgements, she hasn't expressed them.

...

After a particularly vigorous run, Cashmere and I take showers and I collapse on to my bed and quickly fall into a deep sleep. It's the middle of the day, but at this point I can afford a little indulgent afternoon napping.

I have a few unpleasant nightmares that dot the otherwise calm rest. In the midst of my nap I feel a body slide into the bed with me, pulling my arm around her waist. Without opening my eyes I inhale the scent - lavender, and smile. Katniss. I let my hands move underneath her shirt, rubbing the soft skin of her belly just above the waistband of her pants.

I continue the ministrations for a few moments until I get a little warm with desire and need more contact. My hand glides up her stomach until I reach the roundness of her breasts and squeeze them gently, eliciting a soft gasp from her. With my head still buried in the pillow I feel her turn on to her back, allowing me access to both of her wonderful breasts. I move my hand between them, plying the flesh gently, brushing my fingers over the peaked nipples.

My hand moves down her ribs to her stomach, feeling her lungs jerk as her breath hitches because of my touch. As I glide passed the flimsy material of the elastic waistband, I'm surprised at how thoroughly wet she is. I can't help but moan into her bicep as I move my hand around her wetness, soaking my fingers in her arousal.

It isn't until I slip my hand inside her, softly pushing my fingers into her folds, that my eyes shoot open. And when they do, and they adjust for the darkness, I realize why this feels different.

Because this isn't Katniss. It's Cashmere. "Holy shit," I say, and her eyes fly open and lock with mine. "Cashmere, I am so sorry. I - I thought you were..."

As I go to remove my hand from her she clamps her own over mine, keeping me pressed against her sex. She smiles at me warmly. "You were screaming in your sleep and I wanted to help. I know who you thought I was and I-I didn't stop you."

I stare down into her glistening green eyes, searching her for answers to the billion of questions I have buzzing around in my brain. "Why?"

She slowly lifts her hand that's pressing me to her up toward my face, but I don't move my hand from where it sits. Her lips curl into a grin as she brushes hair from my face and cups my cheek. "I wanted to see what it was like to be touched ...like you love me," she whispers. Her eyes dart down to where I'm still pressing against her, then back up into my eyes. There's so much masked pain there it breaks my heart a little. "I wanted to see if it was worth it, even if it's a lie."

So I do the only thing I can think of and I push inside her again and she gasps in a mixture of surprise and pleasure. "And? What's the verdict?"

"Lie to me."

I lean down and capture her lips with mine, stifling her words as I slowly move my tongue with hers. I use my hand at her waist to pull her pants completely off, and she uses her abdomen to pull herself up, whipping off her shirt as I take off mine. Our lips meet again, more hungrily this time, as I toss my pajamas pants on to the floor and settle my naked body against hers. This kiss is so laden with a dormant passion sprung to life, a desperate need that I didn't know she had, that it makes my entire body ache.

I lift my head up, letting my eyes drink in the form of the woman underneath me. In spite of the few scars that mar her skin, she is stunning. "You're gorgeous," I whisper, meeting her eyes in a soft, tender gaze. My head dips down to capture one of her aroused nipples in my mouth, as I slowly push my fingers back inside her.

A long moan escapes her lips as I drag my wet mouth across her chest to her other breast, sucking on her pebbled nub in soft, but strong movements. She grabs my hair and pulls my head up to hers, taking my bottom lip between her teeth. "Harder," she urges in a low growl, and I immediately comply, roughly shoving my fingers inside her sex as deeply as they can go. "Fuck," she swears, kissing me deeply before pulling away and ordering in a low husk, "Slower."

I use my bodyweight to bottom out my fingers as hard as I can inside her, pulling completely out of her before plunging back inside her again. I move my lips from hers to her cheek, placing open-mouth kisses along her face to her ear, tugging on her earlobe before abandoning it for her neck. I gently suckle her pulse point on her neck as I curl my fingers against her g-spot, causing her hips to buck against my hand.

"Oh my fucking god Johanna." It sounds so incredibly erotic to hear her moan my name that I bite down a little harder on her neck as I slowly, but harshly, fuck her. I'm reminded of our near-miss situation days ago, when she had told me "_bitches top_." But here she is, completely and utterly letting herself be taken by me. The intoxication of that power, combined with my obvious attraction, was making me even more determined to cause this woman scream my name.

I flex my thumb out to drag across her clit, drenching my hand in her arousal as I draw lazy circles around the swollen nub. I begin feeling her walls clench around me with more frequency so I slide another finger inside her, filling her as wetness soaks my hand and drips down my wrist. Her fingernails scrape down my back, leaving long, red lines on my sweat-slicked skin. She's certainly not as quiet as Katniss, letting out whimpers of pleasure each time my fingers enter her sodden sex.

She breathes out my name in ragged breaths. "Fuck, oh shit, _please_," she pleads, causing me to growl in pleasure against her neck. "_Please_ don't stop." My lips never leave hers as she nears climax, muffling her moans and stream of expletives until her hips begin bucking in an uncontrollable rhythm. I pull my face away, staring into her green eyes as she squeezes them shut and tries to keep control and prolong her orgasm. "I'm gonna..Johanna, I'm gonna.."

"It's okay, baby, I've got you." I kiss her lips gently and her eyes flutter open. "I love you," I whisper softly against her lips.

That completely undoes her and her walls tighten against my fingers, her orgasm shuddering through her entire body violently. As I watch her recover from her orgasm, I can't help but think of how radiant Katniss looks after she comes. Cashmere looks beautiful, too, but it's different. It doesn't fill my body with warmth. But she wanted me to lie to her, so I did.

After a few minutes of laying there, Cashmere rolls over on her side and plucks strands of hair from in front of my eye. She drags her eyes up and down my naked form, not even pretending to mask the desire in her eyes as she rolls her tongue along her lips. But when her eyes met mine there's a fault there. "I want to...um..can I.."

I grin. "You're the expert, remember?" I tease gently. "How did you imagine it?"

Cashmere smirks. "Which time?" She maneuvers herself on top of me, entwining our fingers and slowly moving my hands up until they're pinned above my head. "I imagined it differently each time." Her head ducks down as she flicks her tongue against my neck. "But in every scenario, I made you beg for it."

I laugh as she moves her hands down my arms to my breasts, gingerly cupping them and her head moves back in pleasure. "Try it." Her eyes dart up to mine and she sees the raised eyebrow on my face in challenge and smirks. She moves her mouth down to my chest, placing wet kisses around my breast, carefully avoiding my nipples. I grunt in frustration and she chuckles against my skin. I try to grab her by the hair and force her to touch me but she grips my wrist tightly and slams it back on the bed.

"Uh uh," she admonishes, shaking her head. "If I could tie you up I would babe, so you've got to be on your best behavior." I sigh and she curls her lips into a grin. "It'll be worth your while, trust me."

I comply, sliding my hands underneath my pillow. I grip the soft material as she continues to lick and nip at my skin surrounding my areola. I bite my bottom lip in pure angst. She hovers her mouth over my nipple, ensconcing the nub with her hot breath. Her tongue slowly makes a circle around the edge, still carefully and skillfully avoiding where I want the contact most.

I make a pitiful noise in the back of my throat and she takes mercy on me, flattening her tongue against my nipple and sucking it hard into her mouth. A long line of curse words pour from my mouth and I can see her cheeks dimple in a smile as she continues to work on my breasts. The way she's positioned her legs, directly between mine, prevents me from squirming my legs together in release, and keeps her own thigh just a few inches away from my center. There is no way I'm getting release unless she relents.

Her hands stroke down my sides, the tickling sensation causing the blood to rush to my center. The ache between my legs is already unbearable, and it seems like she has only just begun. The blonde leans up and forward, capturing my lips in a passionate kiss that steals the breath from my lungs. "You're so beautiful," she mumbles over my lips, kissing them again.

If I wasn't halfway to orgasm already, I might feel a twinge of guilt at her genuine words and expressive eyes. But at the moment, I'm too drunk on pleasure to understand anything. She turns over, pulling me on top of her. "I don't want you to beg," she says breathlessly, tangling her fingers in my dark hair. "I just want you."

She shimmies down the sheets until she's directly beneath me, her arms wrapped around my thighs. Her tongue darts out experimentally, pushing against my entrance softly. My hands grip the headboard, my hips rolling against her mouth as she plunges her tongue inside me. I bounce my hips in short movements, desperate for contact against her. I grip her thick blonde hair with my fingers roughly. Her fingertips dig into the flesh of my backside as she runs her tongue along my folds, then swirls it around my clit.

"Fucking hell," I curse, moaning out her name as she suckles on my bundle of nerves. The way she can move her tongue is something else, almost vibrating it against me as she press her lips against my clit. My orgasm begins slowly, my legs weakly trembling, and Cashmere somehow realizes this and stops what she's doing. I immediately miss the pleasurable soft touch of her tongue inside me. "What the fuck?"

She moves back upward, pulling my head down to her and gruffly shoving her fingers inside me at such quick a pace that I can barely breathe. My teeth automatically clamp around the round top of her shoulder as my climax builds once more, harder this time. I lift my mouth from her and meet eyes with the blonde. "Go ahead," she urges, tilting her head toward her shoulder. Our eyes lock together, a dangerous glint gleaming in her green hues. "Mark me."

I grip my teeth against her shoulder tightly, clenching hard as she brings me over the edge, my entire body shaking with climax. I hear her gasp and whine as I bite down hard on her skin, stifling my screams. When I pull away for a moment, I can see the slightly purpled edges of the mark on her skin and I smile.

My body slumps hard against hers, my breaths coming out hard and fast against her hair. We lie there in silence, hearing the soft hum of electronics and our own labored breaths in the late afternoon sun. The heat of sex makes me suddenly drowsy, and as she gently strokes my hair, I find myself being lulled to sleep. I feel her move away from me, sliding out from underneath my body and covering me with a blanket. She sits on the bed, smoothing down my hair.

"You're a really good fucking liar," she whispers, kissing my temple before she gets up off the bed and plods into the shower.

As I drift into sleep I hear her soft sniffles and quiet sobs coming from the bathroom, not entirely drowned out by the gushing water.

* * *

**A/N: You're welcome.**


	17. Inescapably bound

The next morning hit me like a pile of bricks. Not in the sense that I was feeling smothered as I sometimes do, but that it seemed all my pent-up emotions burst forth, pouring out of me.

Chief among these emotions was guilt. I could feel the hot breath of my father's disapproval of my killing Snow's granddaughter on my neck. I could see her angelic face as I lift her head back and slit her throat. Every hurtful thing I've done for the past few months seems like fresh cut. When Cashmere comes back from her run without me, I'm buried underneath my blankets. She ignores me (as she has done when I have bad days) and takes a shower. When she returns from the bathroom, she speaks without looking over to me.

"You know I was just talking to Haymitch - he says hi - and he said Katniss has been done with official business for at least a full day." When I offer no response she sighs. "I'm just saying, she could at least call. He says she'll probably be back tomorrow or the next day."

When she looks over at me, she finally sees the streaks down my face and burning redness of my eyes.

"Holy shit Mason, you look like garbage." I don't respond, choosing instead to bury my face in my hands. I guess it occurs to her that this is not normal for me because she crosses the room and sits gingerly on the edge of my bed. "Do you want me to get the doctor?"

"No I don't want the fucking doctor," I grumble. I lift my head from my hands and stare at her. It's not fair that she and Katniss have this thing where even right out of the shower, when I look like a wet dog, they look like Capitol models. Damp, tousled hair, flush skin, an overall sheen to their bodies that I could never replicate. "I fucked up."

Cashmere lets out a short laugh and I glare at her as hard as I can. "You'll have to be more specific darling, because you have fucked up a lot recently."

"Gee thanks." I heave a loud sigh, running my fingers through my horrid bedhead. "I killed a little girl, C." More tears stream down my face as flashes of her dead body slumped on the chair flood my consciousness. I murdered an innocent girl in cold blood. For fucking petty revenge. "My father would be so disappointed in me."

"Hey." She gets up and sits next to me, resting her back against the headboard. She pulls me on to her chest, stroking my hair. She smells like herself again, vanilla, and it's comforting. "You know when I won my games I was fifteen. Just a little bit younger than you are now. The tributes that year were around the same age. But from Three, Six, Eight, Ten and Twelve...all of them were younger than me."

Something I like about Cashmere is the timbre of her voice. She can put on this false, brainless girly tone that irritates me to no end, but her real voice is like a cat's purr. It relaxes me as I continue to weep softly. "So when I got into that arena, it was pretty clear we were at an advantage. I teamed up with my partner from One and the kids from Two and it didn't take us long to take out everyone. I mean, we were the Careers, you know? It's expected."

"So anyway, it's down to just us four and two girls from two other districts. We decide to separate, which worked out for me because I was getting real tired of sharing since I was the one pulling in the most sponsors." I look up at her and she grins. "Mostly because Gloss was my mentor. And because of how stunningly gorgeous I am," she jokes with an exaggerated eye roll.

"No argument here," I mumble and her grin turns into a sheepish smile, accompanied by a faint blush. I should probably stop with that because now it's abundantly clear how into me she is. And, if we're being honest with ourselves, I have some feelings for her too. Nothing like what I feel for Katniss, but something. Something greater than friendship and less than being in love.

"My supposed gorgeousness aside, I was happy to be on my own. It didn't take me long to find the other Careers; they were real idiots. It was just me and these two girls. I figure at this point, I've killed about eight people myself. Gloss had killed nine, so naturally I felt like I had to outdo him." She inhales a shaky breath and continues. "I find these two girls holed up in a cave, basically starving. The one girl - a pretty little redhaired thing with freckles - is shivering hard. The other one is trying to calm her down, telling her it was going to be okay. But then they saw me."

I imagine two, underfed kids from the poor districts quivering in fear as they see Cashmere - looking probably similar to how she does now, maybe a bit less developed. But an absolute train of a girl, confident and deadly. "And in that moment, I think of all the people watching. I think of my parents back home, probably screaming at the television for me to kill them. I think of Gloss, at a banquet somewhere telling everyone how rich they'll be if they bet on me."

She sighs again. "They didn't make it easy. I wish they had just attacked me, you know? Tried to kill me. But they just sat there, helpless, staring at me. God, their eyes..." She trails off, wiping one small tear that had escaped her eye. She clears her throat. "So I kill them. I walk into their little cave and just stab them both in their organs. The cannons go off so quickly you almost can't tell there's more than one. Then the trumpets blare and I win."

I had never met Cashmere before that day in the training center. But the notion that all the Careers were just vapid killers was so ubiquitous that I never gave it a second thought. We are all humans with consciences, though. Even someone born and bred to be a superior killing machine has a heart. I have come to learn that Cashmere's heart extends far beyond her chest. She is a deeply caring, somewhat sentimental person with an attitude as thick as a high oak. We are so similar in that respect, and yet, so vastly different. All her life she has been the product of what was expected of her. She was _supposed _to be a champion. Bred to be a physical marvel. I was just some girl from the woods with a sick mother and a craftsman father. I wasn't expected to be anything accept whatever I could be, limited as that was. I had a certain amount of freedom that Cashmere never had.

But yet here she was, in a rebel den in the "lost" District of 13, far from the diamond mines and lavish homes of One. Free of her killer persona, I found a self-deprecating, fragile girl who just wants to be accepted and loved.

"So you see, we all take the lives of people who are innocent. Those girls didn't do anything to me. They were barely women. I probably didn't even have to kill them, they probably would have just died off from starvation. But inside, I knew. I knew it had to be done so I did it." She runs her fingers through my hair, kissing the top of my hairline. "You'll see her face every day for the rest of your life. But that doesn't mean you have to carry that guilt forever. Eventually you find other things. Happy things that can help erase painful memories."

I scoff. "And what happy things are those?"

She leans her head back against the wall, lolling it to the side to look down at me. "I think about my training when I was little. I think about my first set of throwing knives." I chuckle and she nudges me. "Shut up, Seven, you know you were fond of axes and flannel, just like the rest of you lumberjacks." I pinch her thigh lightly. "Later on, you became my happy thing." She smiles, but it quickly fades as she stares out toward the opposite wall. "When I was in the Capitol, it was hard to put myself in a happy place. People were always so miserable, or drunk. I couldn't even pretend to enjoy myself." She looks over at me. "Makes me wish we had met sooner." She scrunches her nose. "Not too much sooner because you are a bit younger than me..."

A wave of nausea comes over me as I think of a young Cashmere, forced to have sex with plump old men from the Capitol. Heaving their giant, puffy red bodies on her, hurting her. I close my eyes to try and fight away the anger rising inside me and accelerating my heart rate. I suddenly want to kill every single person in the Capitol.

She smiles suddenly. "When you showed up at the river and demanded Peeta help you get that bow, that's when I started rooting for you." I look up in surprise and she blushes again. "I thought it was so fucking brave and ballsy. I was like, 'Damn I hope this girl wins so I can meet her.' And you did. But this thing with Katniss, you were untouchable. It was clear to everyone watching how in love with her you were. I mean, the berries. People saw that as rebellion but I saw it as an act of love. You really didn't want to live without her. It was clear as day in your eyes."

"It wasn't clear to Katniss."

Cashmere scoffs. "That girl can be a real idiot, no offense. People were like, oh, what a pretty little graceful thing. Graceful like an arrow. And the other, so wild like the ax.' And I was like, did you not hear her? Your speech after you won...man I've never wished so bad that I was from Twelve until that moment." Now it's my turn to blush. "_I can't pinpoint an exact moment. It felt inevitable. Like somehow her name has been etched inside me all this time like a glyph in a cave. And the Games, the Capitol, wiped a torch across and lit it for me. I finally could see who it was I was meant to love_."

Both my eyebrows are raised as Cashmere recites my Capitol interview. "I-I watched it a lot," she stammers, looking away from me and across the room. "I thought it was beautiful. I'd never heard anybody say anything like that." She pauses. "Well Odair says a lot of flowery things but he only means them when it's about Annie." I let out a small laugh. "And I never understood any of it until I met you."

Cashmere sighs, fiddling with my hand that she's had clasped in her lap, the other still running through my hair. "I'll never get over how lucky she is."

She certainly doesn't mince words. Of course, neither did I when it came to Katniss. I almost always told her how I felt about her, even when she didn't feel that way about me. Or, when she didn't let me know she did. Considering my reputation for being less than tact, I'm surprised at how willing Cashmere is to lay her feelings bare. She's not afraid I'll say something insensitive. Maybe she doesn't care.

"I'm sorry to put this on you. I never meant to ...let you know."

"Wait," I interrupt, pulling myself to sit up straight and face her. "Did you align with me because you were into me?"

"Partially," she replies with a smirk. "Partially because I thought _maybe _I could get you away from Katniss, and partially because I genuinely wanted to help. I wanted to see Snow suffer for what he did. So after we trained together, I got in touch with Blight. He told me to get Nuts and Volts out for you, if Finnick couldn't."

"And the rebellion?"

She nods. "Plutarch had a secret meeting with pretty much everyone but you. I was there, but Gloss wasn't. I knew he would never agree to it. I was just hoping to string him along until the inevitable happened and one of you killed him." We both sit there in silence, as I'm trying to respect her lingering grief for her brother. "I never thought I'd make it out alive."

"Lucky you, getting to get tortured in the Capitol."

She rolls her eyes and nods. "Yeah. Like you I wished they had just killed me, for a while. Snow might have been a sick fuck but he knew how to get under people's skin. He'd show me pictures of you, or recordings of your screams and if I reacted, they'd cut me. Tiny little cuts. Enough to bleed, to burn and be painful, but not enough to kill me."

I swallow down the lump in my throat. "They used _me_?"

She nods. "It was pretty evident to them that I cared about you. Snow would come in and do these long lectures, forcing me to listen to him speak. Then they'd show me live feeds of you in your room." Her green eyes glisten with tears. "You looked so broken," she whispers, biting her lower lip. "I just wanted to protect you."

"I'm sorry," I whisper lamely. I know my apology means nothing now, but I want her to know that I appreciate her suffering. "I didn't know."

"I know, it's okay. I'm just glad they got to us when they did. I heard a doctor talking about hijacking? Using tracker-jacker venom to manipulate memories. I think they were going to destroy my perceptions of you and turn me against you like a weapon." She leans her head back against the wall once more. "I probably would have just killed myself."

The casual way she states this takes me by surprise. As if the choice between hurting me or killing herself was cut and dry. I feel so thoroughly unworthy of her adoration because I can't return it, and I don't deserve it. I lean forward, gently cupping her face with my hand as I press my lips softly against hers. I feel her sigh into my mouth, giving into the kiss with ease.

I can't help the jolt of pleasure that runs directly to my center as I feel her tongue lace with mine. I remember very vividly how talented that tongue is. When we break apart she looks totally mussed from the kiss, her fingers raised to trace across her lips. "I'm in for a rude awakening when Katniss gets back."

I frown at the implication of her words. First, that I have some major explaining to do. Second, that I've been using her because Katniss is away (and probably very angry with me). "This isn't some ...I'm not doing this because of Katniss?"

She lets out a breathy laugh, smiling sadly toward me. "I know that. I just mean ...it's not your problem that I have feelings for you. If I were a lesser person, I'd try and get in between you guys. But unfortunately I'm not. Fucking integrity and all that. I mean, if you wanted a round two..." She reaches up and traces my jaw with her thumb, running the pad of her finger across my lips. I teasingly dart out my tongue. "Oh not fair."

I smirk at her and shrug my shoulders nonchalantly. Her smile fades as she looks down at the blanket and picks at invisible threads. "Are you going to talk to Katniss? About ..about what happened?"

I nod my head. "I have to."

I lean forward and a loud knock at our door startles us both. A look of annoyance comes on my face as I begrudgingly get off the bed. I cross the room to the door and swing it open, only to be greeted with a hard punch to the jaw. Before I can react the man storms into the room, pushing me back by the throat and tossing me to the ground.

He raises his rifle to shoot me, but Cashmere's arms snake around his neck and pull him to the ground as she chokes him. "You fucking lay a finger on her and I will snap your neck so fast your whole fucking head will fall off."

I quickly regain my bearings to disarm him, aiming the rifle down at him. "Who the fuck are you?"

Cashmere releases his throat only a little bit to allow him to talk. "I was sent by President Coin." Cashmere and I exchange confused looks.

"Why?"

He doesn't answer for a split second and Cashmere chokes him harder. "Please," he wheezes out. I look at her and she relents. "I don't know. Orders were to find Johanna Mason and eliminate her. Something about being a traitor."

My eyebrows furrow as I try to process this information. Being a traitor? "A traitor to who?"

"To her," he replies, trying to suck in desperately needed oxygen. "For killing President Snows granddaughter without permission." Before I can ask another question, the Thirteen guards storm into the room and take the man from Cashmere's death grip.

"We're sorry, Soldier Mason," one of them says, handcuffing the man. "He slipped passed security."

Cashmere glares at them. "Well how fucking convenient. Tell me, how much is Coin paying you to sit on your asses and jerk off all day? Hm? Or was today a special bonus to let a goddamn killer in here?"

The man shakes his head. "No ma'am, we don't serve President Coin any longer, I swear. We are under Plutarch Heavensbee's orders. We're truly sorry."

"Yeah well you're going to be very truly sorry when I have a chat with Heavensbee about how his guards almost let a crazy person assassinate Johanna fucking Mason." The men nod their heads and leave, escorting my wannabe assassin out of our room. Cashmere slams the door behind them, and her anger dissipates as she looks at me. "Are you okay? Do you want some ice?"

I rub at my jaw, feeling the swelled skin where I'm sure there will be an attractive bruise tomorrow. "No, it's okay. I've had worse." I shake my head. "So the president of Panem wants me dead. Well, deja vu."

Cashmere puts her hands on her hips, staring at me hard. "She can't get away with this. She can't just eliminate people she doesn't like. It's one thing to hold another fucking Hunger Games, but to try and take your life -"

"What?" I interrupt, wide-eyed. "Another Hunger Games?"

Cashmere blinks slowly. "Oh that's right, she had you in the cell. She had us vote to see if we'd hold another Games. All 24 kids would be from the Capitol. Instead of just razing the Capitol to the ground."

"And you all voted yes?"

"Not all," Cashmere corrects. "Annie, Beetee and I voted no. Everyone else voted yes." Everyone else? Katniss and Haymitch is "everyone else." My eyebrows furrow in confusion. "Coin allowed Katniss an extra vote for you."

"That's still a tie."

"Coin broke the tie herself."

We stare at each other in silence as my mind tries to fit together all the pieces of information. Coin wants me dead. Coin wants another Hunger Games. Coin is another Snow. I have to kill Coin.

* * *

I wait in the hallway as Katniss says hello to her mother and Prim. She had arrived early the next morning, along with Cressida and the rest of the crew. Plutarch was going to hand out new assignments, depending on where in Panem everyone wanted to go. We were supposed to report to him in about an hour, so I didn't have much time to talk to her before then.

When she finally emerges from their compartment, I slide up from my sitting position against the wall and smile at her. She looks amazing - rested, clean, her eyes bright. Her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail, much like how she does it after she's taken a shower. "Hey."

"Hi." I can see her mouth twitch as she fights a smile. Her sort of smiles fades as she takes in the small bruise on my jaw. "What happened?"

"It's a long story. Do you want to come take a walk with me?" I ask, stretching my hand out for her to grab. To my delight she does, and I entwine our fingers as we walk down the corridors of Thirteen, passed the hospital where I've spent far too much of my time, and passed the empty classrooms, since much of Thirteen was off to celebrate the new regime.

Katniss opens a door I don't recognize, and pulls me into a darkened room. Once the door is shut she presses me against it as I gasp in surprise. Her mouth crushes mine, her hands hungrily exploring every part of my body, culminating in my hair as she grips the stands as hard as she can. Her thigh presses against my groin and I bite back a moan. She tugs on my hair, exposing my neck to her mouth, where she eagerly bites and nips at the sensitive skin there.

I run my fingers up and down her sides, my mind recognizing every small curve of her body through the fabric. It feels amazing to smell her and taste her and feel her again.

"Fuck." When I manage the breathy swear Katniss slowly pulls away from me, but I'm unable to really see her eyes in this janitor's closet. She kisses me more softly, lightly grazing her tongue along my lips.

"I missed you so much," she confesses, wrapping her arms around my waist and pulling herself close. "I wanted to be mad at you, but I didn't want to lose you." She presses her lips against mine again, sighing as she leans her head on my chest. "I don't understand why you did what you did, but I love you. I love you and I'm willing to try and understand."

The overwhelming emotions coursing through my veins right now - guilt, elation, love, shame - are enough to keep me silent, content to just hold her body next to mine. She's willing to forgive me for murdering a small child, but will she be willing to forgive me for cheating on her?

"I have to tell you something."

She kisses me briefly and smiles. "Well you'll have a lifetime to do it, but I think we're going to be late for Plutarch's meeting." Without waiting for me to respond she opens the door behind us and leads me back out into the hallway. She wraps her arm around my waist as we walk, so I put mine around her shoulder.

As we come around the corner near Plutarch's main room, we just about run into Cashmere, wearing her running attire of a sports bra and long sweatpants. I feel Katniss' body tense, and I'm sure if I could feel Cashmere, there'd be a similar reaction.

"Well looks who's back! Welcome back, Twelve," Cashmere greets with a smile. She looks at our closeness and somehow manages a genuine smile. "Good to see you two together again. Did you guys have a talk?"

Katniss nods. "A little one."

"Oh, okay good," Cashmere says, relief in her voice. "I didn't want to have to tiptoe around everything. I mean, it was one time and it's not her fault, I came on to her and oh my god that isn't what you talked about, is it?" Halfway through her sentence she either catches my wide-eyes, or Katniss', and a look of absolute horror comes across her face.

Katniss immediately detaches herself from me, her eyes transfixed on Cashmere. I watch her gaze fall to Cashmere's shoulder, noticing the scandalously mouth-shaped bruise mark on her. Cashmere follows her eyes and then looks back to her, a blush creeping up her neck. "Shit, well, fuck. I am so sorry."

Katniss balls her fist, then stretches her fingers out. Within a split second she slaps Cashmere straight across her face, resulting in the immediate recoil of the blonde. I go to touch Katniss' arm and she whirls around, slapping me across the face as well. My breath hitches in a sharp gasp, locking eyes with her. The betrayal in them is unmistakable. My heart sinks slowly in my chest as all the happiness of the last few minutes is sucked out of me.

Plutarch emerges from the room, looking worriedly from girl to girl. "If you ladies are ready, I'd like to start now..."

Katniss pushes passed me and storms into the room. Cashmere and I follow slowly inside, awkwardly sitting at opposite sides of the room. Cressida watches from the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. She makes eye contact with me and slowly shakes her head. I wonder if it's that apparent to everyone.

"As you all know, there is much to be done. The people from districts that took the least damage," Plutarch says as he pulls up a viritual map in the center of the room, "will be going to Twelve, Eleven, Eight, and Three to begin rebuilding. There is something to do in every district, so let me know where you want to go, and I will try to help as best I can."

Gale and a few others express interest in going to Two, the army capitol of the new Panem. Plutarch agrees and puts them in contact with the residing commander there. A few others begin piping up and Plutarch jots all their requests down, nodding his head every one and a while. Finnick and Annie will be returning to Four, preparing for the birth of their baby.

I smile at the news. If nothing else positive came from this revolution, at least they did.

He dismisses everyone but Katniss, Cashmere, and myself. Before any one of the three of us can speak, Plutarch looks over at me. "I want you to know I'm taking very seriously the incident from yesterday."

"What incident?" Katniss asks, looking from me to Plutarch.

He sighs. "There was someone sent from the Capitol to murder Johanna." Her eyes widen at the news, and I absent-mindedly rub at my jaw. "He didn't succeed, obviously, and we are still interrogating him."

"Maybe if you weren't too busy sucking up all the glory and palling around with your best friend Gale in the Capitol, you could have protected her," Cashmere says snidely, just loud enough for Katniss to hear.

Katniss scoffs. "Seems like you had that under control."

Cashmere smirks. "I had a _lot_ of things under my control."

"Ladies," Plutarch warns, holding up his hand. I can see how tightly Katniss is gripping the sides of her seat. She looks like a chained dog about to pounce. And while Cashmere is a fierce fighter, with Katniss' hatred right now, she could probably win in a fight. "Either way, I have had a talk with the others in charge in the Capitol. We all agree that the best course of action, unfortunately, is to remove Coin from power."

"Remove Coin from the planet," I reply, sitting back in my chair.

Plutarch smiles. "In a matter of speaking. Commander Paylor is ready to take over for Coin should something ...happen to her," he says quietly, looking toward us. "I assume you want to go, Johanna?" I nod. "Okay, and I want one of you to go with her."

"I will." Both girls respond in unison, then glare at each other. Under any other circumstances, it would be kinda hot to have two beautiful women at each other's throats over me, but I'm so distracted by how Katniss is reacting that I can't appreciate it.

The white-haired man grins again. "You're both qualified for this mission. You've both gone above and beyond for this rebellion, so I will not pressure you to do this. Decide now, because you have only 48 hours to complete this mission. Coin is giving a large speech tomorrow. It will be the perfect cover to infiltrate the crowd and take her out anonymously." Nobody speaks, we all just stare at each other in silence. "Okay, well, decide amongst yourselves and come let me know. You'll leave tonight."

When he exits the room Katniss stands, looking from one of us to the other. Cashmere props her sneakers up on the table, looking over toward the brunette. "Haven't you had enough rebellion, mockingjay?"

Katniss snorts. "Why? So you can go with Johanna and 'protect' her for me again?"

I want to slap Cashmere right now for the smug look on her face. "I'm a _very_ good protector, Katniss." She levels her gaze at me. "Wasn't I?" She lazily drags her finger along the bruise I gave her. When no one answers she sighs, dropping her smug look in favor of a tired one. "Look, if you go and something happens to you, Mason will probably jump off a cliff. Just let me do this, and then I'll be out of your hair."

"No," Katniss responds immediately. "I don't want you anywhere near her." Cashmere opens her mouth in surprise, but clamps it shut quickly. "This is the end of this conversation."

"Hey, whoa, don't I get a say in all this?" Katniss' icy glare informs me that I do not, so I raise my hands in surrender. "Okay." Katniss leaves the room, going into Plutarch's office to inform him of the decision. I look over at Cashmere, who looks plenty guilty. "What the fuck was that all about?"

Cashmere rubs the back of her neck. "Yeah, I'm sorry, I told you I was in for a rude awakening when Katniss came back. I didn't expect you two to immediately snap back to being all over each other. And honestly, I thought you told her and she was just being surprisingly cool. I just ...I got a little jealous. The past few days have just been the best of my life. And to see it all go up in smoke is a little much for me to handle."

"You'll never stop being important to me," I say with a small smile. "You're probably the best friend I've ever had."

"So much for that because your girlfriend is not going to want me to come on your picnics in the park with you." She lets out a sad chuckle, reaching her hand up toward my face, but she quickly retracts it. "I'm going back to One," she says softly. "My parents are still alive, so I think they'd want to see me. See if I can make myself useful around there."

"I'll miss you." Her eyes light up a little at my words. The way they are flicking from my eyes to my mouth makes me lick my lips absent-mindedly. She glares at me. I smirk. "Sorry."

"It's okay." She pulls me in for a hug, kissing my neck through my hair before pulling away. "And hey, if things don't work out with the mockingjay, you know where to find me." She winks at me, turning on her heel toward the door.

"Hey," I call and she turns around, revealing the start of tears in her eyes. "I'm actually not a good liar, you know." When our eyes lock, I almost wish, just for a second, that I could help get rid of the pain in her eyes. I know I could, if I abandoned Katniss and just followed Cashmere back to One. But no matter how many times I looked into those sparkling green eyes, they'd never be the grey ones I'd be aching for.

She nods as she recognizes the meaning behind my words and gives me a tight smile before leaving the room, just as Katniss walks back in. I look over to her, trying to gauge her mood. Her face is impossibly passive as she looks at me. I reach for her arm and she wrenches it back. "Don't touch me." She grabs my wrist and pulls me out of the room, guiding me down the long, dark hallways of Thirteen.

I don't recognize the compartment she tosses me into, but it doesn't matter. Within seconds the door is slammed, locked, and I'm shoved roughly against the cement wall. Her lips press against mine, stifling any questions I might have had about what the hell we were doing in someone's room. I tangle my fingers in her hair but she grabs my hands, pinning them out to the side.

She pulls back for a brief moment to stare into my eyes. "I said, don't fucking touch me." She drags my hands up the wall until they're above my head, scratching the front of my hand against the grainy cement. The pain is minor compared to the pleasure I'm receiving from her mouth kissing mine. Her tongue runs along my jaw down to my neck, where she bites my skin with such a force I yelp.

She lets go of my hands to pull my shirt over my head, gasping as her hands firmly grasp the flesh of my breasts. She rolls one nub between her fingers as she mouth clamps over the other, sucking on the hardened nub as hard as she can. Apparently, she is determined to make me suffer in the absolute most pleasurable way possible. Everything she's doing, with the edge of pain to it, is sending jolts of pleasure straight to my center.

One of my hands finds the back of her head again and she grabs it again and tosses it away from her. Her lips travel up to the top of my breast, where she bites down again, sending wetness to my sex and a loud moan bubbling up from my throat. "Fuck, Katniss."

She pulls her mouth away and grabs my hips, digging her fingers into the soft flesh. "Shut the fuck up." I'm surprised by her swearing but have no time to react as she uses her leverage on my hips to throw me on to the bed. She glares down at me, pulling her own shirt over her head. "Take off your pants," she says lowly, gritting her teeth. "_Now_."

I'm evidently in no position to refuse so I comply, removing my pants and underwear, kicking my shoes off as well. Once I'm fully naked she walks toward me, straddling my hips. Her hands come up to tangle in my hair, crushing our lips together again. My lips are almost sore at this point from the forceful kissing and tugs from her teeth, but I can't stop her. She's like a woman possessed. She slides her hands down my neck to my shoulders, where she pushes me down against the bed and holds me there.

For a few beats she just stares down at me, her eyes traveling over my body slowly. There's a tenderness behind the aggression, but she barely lets it show. Instead she moves herself backward just a bit and drags her fingers along my entrance. I hiss in pleasure, wanting to touch her and urge her, but I know that this isn't about me.

Her eyes never leave mine as she slides inside me, using the rocking movements of her hips to create a slow rhythm. While it's only been a day or so since I've been touched, it's been ages since Katniss has touched me. The feeling is indescribable. Seeing her move with determination, trying desperately not to convey pleasure or happiness is disturbingly erotic.

She leans down as she continues to passionately fuck me, spreading her fingers to reach both sides of my walls, hitting my g spot with such force I can barely stop my legs from shaking. Her damp forehead rests against mine, her grey eyes almost not blinking as she looks at me. "Look at me," she whispers, so I make sure my eyes are open, even though they're unfocused with desire.

"Do you love me?" she asks, increasing the speed of her fingers inside me.

"Yes," I gasp out, feeling the slow burn of arousal in my stomach beginning to form.

Her lips drag from mine to my ear, her tongue dancing around my earlobe. "Are you mine, Johanna?" she asks softly, sending a shiver down my spine as her hot breath fills my ear.

"Yours."

"Only mine?" She pushes inside me more forcefully with that question, communicating her anger with every thrust.

"Only yours."

I feel her lips curl into a grin against my skin as my hips begin to shake as she sends me closer to the edge. She nestles herself into the crook of my neck, her tongue lapping out to taste the sweat of my skin there. "Say you don't want anyone else but me."

Even though I'm high on pleasure, I can detect the sadness behind her aggressive whisper. My heart pounds a little more painfully at that. "I only want you, Katniss." Her thumb begins to rub circles around my clit softly and I feel the beginning of my orgasm taking all my nerves by surprise. "It's always only been you."

As my climax rolls through me I feel her bite down hard between my neck and my shoulder, sucking at the skin there with all the force she can muster. The pain sends extra waves of pleasure through me, and her pace inside me doesn't quit. Even though I'm soaked through I can feel more wetness pooling on to the mattress as the force of her continued suckling on my neck sends me into another orgasm.

I can barely breathe when she finally unhooks her teeth from my skin, slowly removing her hand from inside me. She rolls off of me, settling down next to me and on top of my arm. I hear her kick off her boots and feel her shimmy her pants off. She wraps herself around my midsection, resting her head on top of my shoulder.

I don't know where we stand, but I know that this was not about sex. This was about claiming me as hers. After all this time, I can finally say that I understand Katniss' feelings for me. They are overwhelming, possessive, tender, and perhaps she loves me as much as I love her. I have made a lot of mistakes, but yet here she is, in my arms again. We are inescapably bound to each other.

"I don't want anyone else touching you for as long as you live," she says finally, possessiveness with just a touch of desperation laden in her husky, desire-filled voice. "You belong to me, and I belong to you."

* * *

**A/N: I'm apparently going to die of some weird flu-like sickness, even though I haven't been sick since I was like 7. But on the bright side (for you all lol), I haven't been able to do much of anything except throw up and write.**

**And look, Joniss! I'm so thrilled at how positively you all are reacting to Cashmere. I know you guys are little bit (or a lot) shipping Jo and Cash, and that makes me happy. If I can get some hardcore Joniss people to ship ANOTHER couple IN my Joniss fic, that is amazing lol.**

**Also hello new followers! I hope you are all enjoying yourselves! Feel free to leave reviews and let me know what you think. :)**


	18. Family

A few hours later Katniss and I show up in the main room in Thirteen, outfitted in suits I've never seen before. They are cotton thin, but they form to your skin and are hard to the touch. The hood slipped over my head, and there was a piece of fabric tucked into my collar that I could pull and cover my face up to my eyes. I do it, seeing how well I could breathe through the fabric. Surprisingly well, I find out. I have a small belt around the middle of the jumpsuit, complete with a retractable ax built by Beetee, and a small pouch with knives. As I run my fingers over the few small knives I smile sadly. She is already gone. (When I returned to my compartment to get ready, I saw her things were gone and her bed made. To say I had an emotional breakdown is an understatement. But I had to compose myself because we had a mission to do. I was not prepared for the gaping hole in my heart.)

Katniss still has her hood down when I turn to her, but I pull mine up. Her eyes unabashedly trail from my head to my feet, then slowly back up again. She licks her lips slowly. She doesn't have to tell me what she's thinking because her eyes say it all - like a wolf staring down a raw steak. She looks amazing as well - the form-fitting suit compliments every inch of her feminine curves. Her bow slung over her shoulder and a small quiver with arrows around her back, her hood resting on her shoulders. Her face is free of make-up, her skin its normal light olive tone, dotted with a few freckles.

I on the other hand, have dark black eyeliner around my eyes, a smear of black eyeshadow over both of my eyelids, and thick, black mascara on both my sets of eyelashes. I needed to get into a dark, angry place to muster up the courage to kill Coin so I started with my face. As we board the hovercraft, I grip my fists together and place them on my thighs.

_Explore your anger_, my doctor had said. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself being swallowed whole by it. My mind wanders to the little girl I killed, to the other tributes I murdered, to my mother, my father, Violet, Peeta, Rue. I imagine every death is my fault and the only way I can redeem myself is to get rid of Coin. I will murder her for Cashmere, for 16-year-old Cashmere being forced into prostitution. I am a revenge seeker. I am death incarnate.

I am fucking pissed off.

...

The plan forms on the hovercraft on the way over. We are to silently infiltrate Coin's speech crowd, eliminate Coin, and escape within a matter of seconds. The hovercraft would only wait fifteen minutes before departing back for Thirteen, with or without us. Once she's dead Commander Paylor will give an emergency speech and inform them of Coin's unfortunate death. The other district leaders will unanimously elect Paylor as Katniss and I are far away.

We arrive just as the speech is beginning. A large crowd of citizens have gathered beneath the balcony, shouting cheerfully for their new leader. The grey-haired woman stands tall, addressing the crowd with her calm confidence that got her "elected" in the first place. We maneuver through the crowd almost completely unnoticed, careful to dodge the sweep of the insect cameras above our heads. Luckily the Capitol is so fucking weird we don't even look strange in our hooded outfits.

Once we are situated near the center of the crowd, Katniss leans into my ear. "I can't stretch my bow back. The crowd is too thick."

I look down to her where I can see she's squished between two very large men behind and beside her, prohibiting her from pulling her elbow back far enough to launch an arrow. I nod my head. I might have enough room to toss an ax, but I'm now thinking I might accidentally hit someone on the throw. Almost makes me miss the open space of the arena.

Instead I opt for my knives. I remove one of the small knives from my holster, gripping it in my palm. I try to remember Cashmere's tips from our training in the arena on how to accurately throw a knife. Like an ax, the strength comes from your wrist. The accuracy, however, lies in the direction of your fingers. I grip the knife tightly before pulling it toward my chest and flicking it outward.

It sails over the crowd, and if Cashmere is watching somewhere in One I hope she's proud, because I nail Coin in the center of her throat. Bulls-fucking-eye. She clutches her throat before falling forward, folding over the balcony and crashing down on to the ground below her.

Katniss and I waste no time in making our way out of the hysteria, pushing through the trampling crowd as we try to go back the way we came. We find one unguarded gate going out toward the field behind the mansion and we begin to jog toward it. As we approach a Peacekeeper steps in front, his rifle raised. "No one leaves the mansion!" he barks at us, staring down his scope.

I know our outfits deflect bullets but I doubt it will take several bullets to the face. I step in front of Katniss, canting my head to the side. "Is this how you want to die, soldier? Protecting a dead woman?"

"I could say the same for you." He moves his rifle over my shoulder toward Katniss but before he can fire he drops to his knees, blood spewing from his mouth. Behind him I see the smirking form of Cashmere, wearing the traditional soldier's uniform from Thirteen. Nothing in this earth can stop the smile from forming on my face when I see her.

"And you said you didn't need help. Now let's get going ladies." As she confidently turns on her heel she walks smack into another Peacekeeper, who strikes her down with the butt end of his rifle. He spins it around and aims his rifle at her head. A strangled cry emits from my throat. An arrow flies almost instantaneously as his shot fires, hitting him in the heart and forcing him backward.

Katniss begins running toward the grass, but I kneel down next to Cashmere, trying to find the wound. Her breaths come ragged and short, her green eyes searching mine wildly. I see the wound finally, near her stomach. I press my hands on it, a sudden flashback of trying to save Peeta in the arena coming into my vision as her blood seeps through my fingers.

I can't lose her. I can't possibly lose her because I need her. "No, please," I beg to no one in particular. I look over to Katniss, who seems to be torn between leaving her here and getting to the hovercraft. "We can't leave her here, Katniss."

"We can't drag her back to the hovercraft in time," Katniss reasons desperately. "It's leaving in like five minutes. We'll all die here."

I harden my stare at Katniss. I know she's being practical because Cashmere's wound looks mortal, but I am incapable of practicality. To let Cashmere die would be like cutting off one of my limbs. "Then I die trying. Go ahead without us. I can't watch someone else I love die, Katniss! I just fucking can't."

"Just go," the soft whisper comes from the ground. I look at Cashmere, who is somehow managing a small smile. "At least I got to see you again."

My heart aches so hard inside my chest that I'm almost sick. The words that pop into my brain, the harsh words I'm thinking, don't make it to my mouth. Something like 'Don't you dare fucking die on me.' Instead something desperate and soft comes out as I look into her unfocused eyes. "Please don't leave me."

Katniss sighs exasperatedly, looking down to Cashmere, whose face is paling as we speak, then up to me. I expect to see jealousy or anger in her face, as I've just plead for the life for the woman I cheated on her with. But instead I find brave resignation. "If you go, I go."

I scoop Cashmere in my arms, as I did the day she hit the force field, and begin the light jog back to the hovercraft. My slowed down pace is definitely hindering our movement and time seems to be moving too quickly. Our cuffs beep to indicate we only have one minute left. I can't go any faster, for fear of making her bleed more. Her coughing has turned up some blood, spattering on my shirt as her head rests on my bicep.

"I got blood..." She wheezes her comment out. "On your shirt."

With only a few seconds to spare we board the hovercraft. I rush passed Katniss and bring Cashmere to the infirmary. "Shot," I choke out, barely able to speak with the lump in my throat. "Shot near the stomach. Do something!" I scream.

The doctors push me out of their way as they begin to strip her uniform off. "You need to leave, Soldier Mason. We'll take it from here."

"No please," Cashmere begs from the table. "Please let her stay." I glare at the doctor and stand next to Cashmere, grasping her hand in my bloody ones. "Don't leave me." She smiles at me as the doctors begin injecting her with morphling to dull the pain. As I look back toward the seating area, I see Katniss very briefly before the doors close on us.

"Never."

* * *

I awaken in a chair next to the hospital bed back in Thirteen, my hand permanently clasped with Cashmere's. My neck is sore from being leant over the bed for god knows how long. An overwhelming wave of relief comes over me as I see her chest rising and falling slowly, and hear the beeping of the machine indicating her steady heart beat.

I slide the wheels of the chair over so I'm near her head. She looks so much younger when she's asleep. I run my fingers through her hair, staring at her face as I do so. When I watched the life drain from her body, my heart seized in a way it hasn't since I saw Violet's body hanging in my prison cell. It hadn't occurred to me exactly how vital she was to my existence. The thought of losing her had paralyzed me.

Her eyes slowly flutter open, squinting as she adjusts to the harsh lights above her hospital bed. I watch her pupils dilate as she tries to focus, her body registering her location and her pain. Finally her head lolls to the side and she looks at me. Very, very slowly a smile comes on to her face. "Your face looks terrible, Mason."

A let out a short laugh, taking her hand and pressing her knuckles to my lips. "The rest of me's not bad though, right?" I'm still in my assassin attire and Cashmere eyes me and gives a short nod. She looks down at her body, grimacing as she sees the paleness of her skin. "And you can't even see your bandage. It's pretty nasty."

"I thought I was dead."

"We both did." Her head rests back on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. "You saved our lives."

A short stream of air comes out of her nose. "I couldn't let Katniss take all the glory again," she jokes, wincing painfully as the laughter jolts her side. "Thanks for staying with me. I'm sure Katniss was thrilled."

I smile. "Actually she didn't say anything. I think she realizes now that you're not going anywhere." I use my free hand to stroke her hair, rubbing small circles on her scalp. "It's me who has the problem."

"You?"

I nod. "I'm never going to be able to stop loving you." Her eyes water and she looks back up at the ceiling. "When I fell for Katniss, it was like being hit by a train. I had nowhere to go."

"Trust me, I know."

"But you...you crept up on me." I lean forward and press my lips against her forehead, then return to my seat. "I never thought I would love _anyone_. And look where I am now. In love with two."

The look on her face - the childlike wonder - hurts my chest. "You're in love with me?" Her voice is small, what I think she must have sounded like as a teenager, before she was prematurely brought into a world of killing and sex. I like to think only I bring back that innocent side of Cashmere.

"Yes." I lean down to kiss her but she places her fingers on my lips.

"No, don't." I can't, and do nothing to, stop the hurt that flashes on my features. "I don't want our last kiss to be like this. Me in this bed looking like a mannequin, and you trying to prove something. That last one in the compartment? That felt real. I want to remember your kisses like that. Real."

I don't know what to say so I just back away, keeping her hand resting against my face. "I told you a while ago that I was not going to try and steal you from Katniss. And I'm not. Me showing up at the Capitol was because I love you, not because I wanted to show her up. I wanted to make sure you were safe." I open my mouth to say something but she shakes her head. "No, listen to me. I am saying this one time, and then never again, understand?"

I nod my head, wiping my tears with my forearm. "I'm in love with you, Johanna. I've never been in love before. I had no idea that I would feel this way in every inch of my body. When I agreed to take part in the rebellion, to protect you, I kept thinking that this feeling would fade. I kept hoping it would, at least. But it only got worse as I got to know you better and find more things about you that I liked." A rueful smile comes on her lips. "And to sit back and watch you love someone else who didn't seem to return it made me so angry."

"Made me angry too."

She sniffs. "When you were asleep on the beach, Katniss and I talked. We talked about my games, about my brother, but afterward, we talked about you. The look in her eyes, man, she was crazy about you. But she was so afraid of it. I kept telling her how annoying it was to see you be such a pathetic loser for her all the time. How obvious it was to everyone outside the Capitol that you were head over heels for her. But she still was being such a fucking idiot being like 'Oh, it's just for the Capitol.'" Cashmere rolls her eyes and scoffs. "It was like, wake the fuck up, you know? Because if she didn't realize how you felt about her, or her about you, I was going to lose my patience and just take you for myself."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Cashmere sighs, reaching up an arm painfully to hold the side of my face. "Because, stupid, you don't have a decision to make. I don't want to be the girl that separates two people so in love. I won't be the girl you settle for. And no matter how you feel about me, that's what I'll be. And deep in a part of me that lacks any self-esteem at all, I would be that person anyway, if you chose me." I drop my gaze to the ground. "Since I can't get over you, I'm going to go home once I'm better."

She lets out a shaky breath and drops her arm back to the table. "And maybe, over time, we can be friends. When seeing you with her doesn't break my heart anymore. Or I can hide it a little better." She smiles sadly at me. "I'm not a very good liar either."

A cheery nurse whips the curtain back and smiles broadly at us. "Good morning, Cashmere. How are you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a train." She shares a look with me as the nurse tut-tuts under her breath.

"Okay well the doctor wants to see you. We'll just roll you on in there and give you a check-up, okay?" Cashmere glares at me, trying to convey her annoyance at this woman. They load her into a wheelchair and wheel her into another room, leaving me alone next to her bed.

The door behind me opened and closed, and I turn my head to see Katniss walking in the room. She finds another chair and pulled it beside me, handing me a cup of coffee. "How is she?"

I shrug my shoulders and sip the black liquid. It's bitter and strong, but very much needed so I flash her an appreciative smile. "I don't know. She's talking and coherent. Nobody has told me anything but I don't think one bullet is going to take her out."

Katniss stares at my face as I stare down into my coffee. "You love her, don't you?"

"Is that an accusation or a question?"

Katniss tucks hair behind my ear and gives me a small smile. "It's a question," she answers calmly.

I nod my head. "I do love her." _More than I want to. More than I meant to._

Katniss swallows, then slowly licks her lips as she looks at me. "Are you in love with her?" Her voice breaks at the end of the sentence, betraying her otherwise impassive features.

I look back down at the empty bed. Am I in love with her? _Yes_. The process if claiming my emotions back slowly is kind of like the sensation of feeling returning to limbs that were asleep. There is a tingle in my heart when I think of her, one that hadn't been there before. There's also a tingle somewhere else much more vulgar, which had definitely always been there.

But she wasn't going to leave me any choice. Cashmere was going to leave and hopefully, my feelings for her will leave as well.

"I keep feeling like I'm not going to be enough for you," Katniss says softly, her gaze fixated on the blonde. "I didn't love you right away like she did. I haven't nearly sacrificed my life several times over for you."

"Do you honestly think that's what I want? For you to put your life in danger for me? Do you think that's what love is?" I spit out the series of questions rapid-fire, removing my hand from Cashmere's and placing it on Katniss' cheek. "Sometimes, yeah, love is about sacrifice. When we almost ate those berries, we proved it. But you and I are not the ones making the sacrifice. She is. She will have to live with her love for me, knowing fully well I can't return it. Not in the way she wants."

"Because whatever the choice is, I will _always_ choose you. Not enough for me? You're my sun and stars, do you understand that? And she...she will always be a very big piece of my heart. I know that I don't want to live without her in my life. But I am certain I cannot live without you."

Katniss leans forward and cups my face in her hands, kissing me slowly, deeply, conveying the words she can't say. I feel her tears on my cheeks, and as her lips continue to move against mine, I begin tasting the saltiness of them on my tongue. When she pulls away, the look in her eyes steals my breath. She's looking at me like I'm the single most wonderful thing she's ever seen. She's looking at me like I've always looked at her.

"When she gets better, why don't we move to Seven?" Katniss asks, placing her hand on top of mine. "We'll only be a day's ride away from my mom and Prim in Twelve, and only a short ride to One."

"Really?" I ask, elated by her proposition. "Are you sure you don't want to be near your family?"

She smiles. "You're my family now. And apparently that means _she's_ my family now too. Like an older sister who hates your guts and is not allowed near your girlfriend." She runs her free hand through my hair, wiping the few tears on my cheek with the pad of her thumb. "I want to be with you, wherever that is, whatever that means."

* * *

It takes about three weeks until we hear that Cashmere is well enough to leave Thirteen. When I tell her that we're going to live in Seven, only a three-hour train ride from One, she's excited. On the ride back to Seven she talks non stop about how her father's talent after his games was architecture and how he'd probably love to design a school to teach the way Pollux and Violet learned to communicate. A progeny of sign language, which is all but lost as a means of communication now.

We agree to meet at least once a month to begin planning it. I insist we built it in Eleven.

...

A few weeks roll by slowly, moving Katniss' things from Twelve to Seven, where we set up our home in my former Victor's house. It still smells of my father when I enter, but the smell comforts me rather than makes me sad. The scent of Katniss' lavender and smoke, combined with my father's lingering scent of coffee and sawdust is amazing.

It's home.

I still have my bad days - days blotted in darkness and I can barely get out of bed. Katniss will either stay in bed with me and read me stories, or go out hunting for the day. Either way she's always there at night, forcing me to eat dinner and cuddling me until I fall asleep. Sometimes, she battles me to get out of bed, forcing me to face the darkness head-on instead of hiding in my bed.

And I still have my good days. Days when I go hunting with Katniss in the woods, or play my father's fiddle outside in the hammock. I have amazing days that are filled with new friends and new hope. We become fast friends with Kendra, Blight's widow, who lives next door. She almost becomes like another mom to Katniss and I, baking us treats and making sure we board up the windows before storms. Violet's sister Yari helps me run the school for the deaf and the former Avoxes in Eleven. As the years go by, it's almost like a new family born from the ashes of our original ones.

The weirdest part: Cashmere spending time in Seven with Katniss when I'm in Eleven helping the school. They've almost begun to like each other a little bit. I won't say that it isn't sometimes awkward; a lingering look in her direction gets me in trouble with Katniss (a really, _really _good kind of trouble), and affection between Katniss and I still puts a hurt into Cashmere's eyes.

That's the weird thing about true love, it always hurts someone. Because if someone is worth loving that wholly, then there is probably someone else who sees their light and wants to bask in it.

It's far from perfect. It's dysfunctional and bizarre, but it's family.

* * *

**Epilogue**

...

"Oh my god if you aren't ready in ten seconds I'm leaving without you." I stand impatiently near the door of our home, bundled in a scarf that smells like the sea - a winter gift from Annie, Finnick and their son. I cross my arms over my jacket, tapping my boot against the floor. I eye Haymitch, who has made himself at home in my recliner near our fireplace, sharing a drink of hard cider with Cashmere. He looks extremely amused at my impatience, as does the blonde. Gale is next to me, trying to stifle his grin at my pushiness. He isn't hiding it well so I jab him with my elbow.

"Lighten up, Mason," Cashmere taunts, taking a swig of the cider and handing the flask back to Haymitch. "We're going to a _party_. You're as bad as the escorts."

After what seems like an eternity Katniss finally appears from the doorway. Even wrapped in her thick scarf, leather hunting jacket and jeans, she looks amazing. We've been together almost fifteen years now, and she still looks as young and beautiful as she did the day I saw her get reaped. A smile forces its way on to my lips even though I'm angry with how long they took to get ready. She crosses the room to me, tucking her arms around my elbow and nuzzling her face into my cheek.

The stirring in my stomach never fails when her lips touch my skin. "I'm sorry, Jo. You know how fussy they are." The culprits of why we are running late for the winter bonfire festival in the center of town come running around the corner, sliding in snow boots across the hardwood floor.

It didn't take long for Katniss to convince me to want kids. I think once her mind truly wrapped around the concept that no harm would come to them via the Hunger Games, she was on board. I am easy to convince as far as Katniss is concerned; she pouts that lip or uses that tongue and I'm like putty. The technology for two women to have kids exists, but we could only have a girl since we lack the necessary Y chromosome. Not that it stopped us. About five years after we moved to Seven Katniss gave birth to Autumn. A precocious little girl with black hair, grey eyes and light skin, able to scale a tree in less than five seconds. She is a chronic worrier and just a tad bit bossy.

We wanted to try for a boy, so I reluctantly agreed to ask Gale to help us. He and Katniss look so much alike, we felt it was the most appropriate thing to do. He was extremely excited for a chance to be Uncle Gale. I was the absolute worst pregnant woman on the planet - how Katniss ever stayed with me is a testament to her godlike patience. But nine long, horrible months later we had Chase. He doesn't look much like Katniss or Gale - he looks like me with an olive complexion. He's a spitfire, too. Temperamental and stubborn, but loving and caring to his older sister.

Neither Katniss nor I ever saw ourselves with children; the horrible world we lived in didn't seem fit for the worst criminal, nevermind an innocent child. But this new world that we helped build, filled with wonderful people like Cashmere, Gale, Haymitch, Prim, and Finnick, and built on the memories of our family and friends, this is a world to bring in new life. And now I can't imagine life without them.

"Autumn was trying to strangle me with my scarf," Chase accuses in his tiny voice, glaring at his sister.

"Was not. I was trying to tie it because it was dragging the floor." She runs over to Cashmere, standing indignantly next to her. "That's not even what took you so long. You're always laying in the bath for _hours. _Right Aunt Cashmere? Last time Aunt Cashmere babysitted us Chase looked like a turtle when he got out of the bath 'cause he was so pruny."

"I am staying out of this one," Cashmere replies, pulling Autumn's winter hood over her head and looking toward Katniss and I.

"Good idea, _Aunt Cashmere_," I tease, getting an icy stare from the blonde in response. I scoop Chase in my arms and look to the pouting boy. "Okay Little Turtle, let's get out of here before the light the fire without us."

We amble down the road toward the large bonfire in the center of town. Katniss and I are obviously very famous in Seven (as well as the rest of Panem) so we are bombarded by people as we try to make our way toward the front. To light the annual bonfire is a great honor, and this year it has been given to me. The mayor greets me with a warm, alcohol-soaked hug as he hands me the torch.

I hold the torch above my head, looking out at the crowd. All of these faces - some familiar from when I was growing up, some new from people being able to move freely between the districts - warms me in a way no fire never could. My eyes fall on Katniss, who is standing in between Cashmere and Gale, Autumn and Chase at her feet, Haymitch behind her. You'd think it would be scary to know that your reason for breathing, your happiness, your whole world belongs inside one person, but it isn't. I know that my love for her is safely tucked inside her heart, like treasure in a thickly walled castle.

I remember back to when I was kid and I wanted to be a pirate. I'd lay in the bath like Chase does now and dream I was in a faraway place, carelessly sailing from port to port. That's all well and good in theory, but living on the sea doesn't let you grow deep roots. And maybe it's because I'm from the lumber district, but I needed to root. I don't need to travel to a faraway place to be happy anymore. My happiness is carried in the hearts of the people I love.

My arm swings down and lights the edge of the bonfire. It quickly ascends toward the top, lighting up the faces of the onlookers and spreading a warmth that helps temper the bitter Seven winter. I find my way back to Katniss, sneaking in between her and Cashmere, wrapping my arm around her waist as we watch the flames consume the fire.

She is no longer the girl on fire. We are no longer the ax and the arrow. We're just Katniss and Johanna Mason. Cashmere loops her arm through my free one, leaning on me as she watches the fire. There is a reason we are the survivors of the rebellion. Part of it is dumb luck - that Peeta, not me, died in the arena. Part of it is the hope we helped spread through the districts. Mostly, though, it is because everything we did, we did out of love. For each other, for our families, for Panem. Call me a sap - even though if you did I'd rip your throat out - but I'd be damned if love isn't the strongest force on this earth. You'll never prove to me that it isn't.

* * *

**A/N: First, thank you guys so fucking much for your amazing reviews and continued support of this fic. It's been wicked overwhelming to see your follows and reviews every time I post. I'm in love with each and every one of you.**

**Second, I'm sorry to end this fic so soon. I just got to a point writing this where I felt like I wanted closure. I didn't want a drawn-out struggle for Johanna's affections. It was clear (at least to me) where Johanna was at.**

**Third, I am REALLY sorry for those of you who shipped Jo and Cashmere. They are SO CUTE but that's not where Johanna's love resides. It never was, and it never would be. Love is messy, all. Somebody always gets hurt. I firmly believe that someone can be in love with more than one person, but in the end, a choice usually has to be made. Katniss was not going to share.**

**That being said... I am considering writing an alternate ending where Johanna _does_ choose Cashmere, just as a challenge. Would there be any interest in that? I'd add them on as chapter(s) to this fic. No promises on length.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	19. Not a very good liar - Alt Ending

**A/N: This is the alternate ending I said I'd try out if there was interest. And yay, there was! This picks up about halfway through the last chapter. It begins after Katniss, Johanna, and Cashmere get back from the Capitol after killing Coin. Enjoy!**

* * *

I awaken in a chair in the hospital section of Thirteen, my hand clasped with Cashmere's just as it was on the hovercraft. I don't know how they operated on her with me attached to her like a siamese twin, but she's breathing so that's all that matters. I slide the rolling chair over toward her head, gazing down at her sleeping form. My neck is sore from being leant over her bed for god knows how long, but I don't care.

The machine next to me beeps intermittently to tell me she's alive. She's fucking alive. For the upteenth time this woman has put her life on the line for me. Not just me, but also Katniss. I stroke her hair gently, entwining my fingers with her thick blonde locks. My thumb rubs the creases in her forehead that appear as she slowly begins to awaken.

"Mm Johanna," she whispers in a voice as light as mist. I can't help but smile sadly. I watch her eyes flutter open, straining against the bright lights above her head. Her eyes are slow to recognize where she is, but when she does her eyes roll in frustration. Her head rolls to the side and she finally takes me in. A genuine smile appears on her features, then her eyes narrow as she scrutinizes my appearance. I'm still in the assassin outfit, covered in her blood. "Your face is bloody."

"The rest of me doesn't look so bad though, right?" I say, giving a nod down at my outfit. Cashmere peers at me and smirks.

"You're insufferably hot even when you're a bloody, tired mess. It's fucking annoying." I blush and duck my head and I hear her chuckle. She winces painfully as the short movements must hurt her wound. I lift up her hospital shirt to inspect the bandages. "Don't go getting any ideas, Mason. I'm not in top form."

I raise my eyebrow at her and shake my head, looking at the bandage. They must have been able to remove the bullet and help heal her skin. There's not even blood on the white gauze. My fingers trace her skin around the gauze, eliciting goosebumps all around her stomach. I watch her fine abdominal muscles twitch beneath my touch. Her skin is much paler than I remember, probably due to the blood loss, no doubt.

"Tease," she whispers finally, bringing my attention up to her face. Her lips are set in a grin, her green eyes focus on me. Her raised eyebrow comes down as she takes a look around. "Where's your better half?"

"Katniss?" Cashmere rolls her eyes like I'm an idiot. "I don't know. I came with you into the operating room and she went back to her compartment, I guess?" Cashmere looks confused. I smile as I drag my hand down her stomach and clasp her hand in mine again. "I haven't left you since we got off the hovercraft."

The blonde looks at me with wide eyes, unable to stop the glistening of tears in them. She wets her lips with her tongue, looking away from me and up toward the ceiling. "You're making this hard for me."

"Making what hard for you?"

She lets out a sigh, still not looking toward me. "Because I'm in love with you and I want to be the bigger person. I want to step aside and let you be with Katniss. I want to find solace in the fact that you're happy and loved and protected." She tucks her upper lip between her teeth and then lets it go. "But I can't do that unless you let me go."

I know she's right. I don't want to string her along emotionally and just drop her off when I'm tired of her. I'm at such a crossroads that I don't respond. I simply continue to rub over her knuckles with my thumb. The first thing that pops into my mind, I say out loud. "What if I don't want to let you go?"

"Good morning Cashmere!" a dreadfully cheery nurses whips back the curtain that separates Cashmere from the empty beds in the hospital. She for a moment appraises our closeness with raised eyebrows but then returns them back down toward her eyes. "How are you feeling today, dear?"

Cashmere doesn't at all attempt to hide her annoyance at being interrupted. "Like I got shot in the stomach."

The nurse rolls her eyes good-naturedly and I move my seat back to allow the nurse to take Cashmere off the bed. "Is it okay if I take her for a little bit?"

It takes me a moment to realize she's talking to me and I smirk. "As long as she's back in one piece."

As the nurse goes to roll Cashmere out Haymitch walks in the room. "Cash! And how are you this morning?"

"Dandy, Haymitch, thanks for asking."

"Good to hear." He steps aside and lets the two women out, then faces me as he enters the room. "And how about you?"

I lean back in the chair, letting my breath out in a huff as I look at the blue-eyed older man. "Pretty good, considering. Did all go well with the transfer of power? Everything right in Panem once again?"

Haymitch pulls up a seat and sits in in backward, resting his arms on the back of the chair. He nods in affirmation, but the uneasy way he's sitting makes me suspicious. Something about the way he's looking at me is spreading a dread in my stomach. "Johanna, Katniss went back to Twelve."

While I'm upset she didn't say good-bye to me, I'm not entirely surprised. I figured she would go back to Twelve with her mother and Prim, and I'd either move my things there, or she'd move her things to my house. We hadn't exactly had a chance to talk about it yet. "What are you really trying to say?"

Haymitch clears his throat, shifting in his seat like it's made of hot coals. "It's not my place to get involved. She just said she wanted time alone. To tell you that she would talk to you soon. And not to follow her."

Not to follow her? What happened to _if you go, I go_? My whole world is tethered to her; anything else is unthinkable. I must look lost because Haymitch reaches forward over the chair to rest his hand on my leg. "I know this is hard for you, but that's what she wanted and I think you should respect that."

"Why?" I ask, trying to blink back the tears in my eyes.

"I don't really know. If I were to make an educated guess, I'd say it had something to do with how, um, devoted you are to your friend."

Anger begins slowly replacing sadness in my veins. "Are you kidding? Because of Cashmere? She really is fucking brainless."

"Johanna, can you blame her? That girl has saved your life a lot, she's clearly in love with you, and you haven't left her side in two days." Two days? I figured it had been a couple hours but apparently it's been two days since we got back to Thirteen. I stand up from my chair, pacing around the room anxiously.

"You know what? Fuck that. I'm not going to stick my tail between my legs because she's a little jealous." I storm toward the door as Haymitch grabs my wrist. I narrow my eyes at him. "I'm going to Twelve. She doesn't get to just run away from her problems. We didn't work this hard for this to end because she's being a fucking child."

* * *

I arrive in Twelve just a few hours later, still filled to the brim with my anger. As if anticipating my mood, dark thunderclouds form overheard and begin washing down hard droplets of rain. I pull the hood up of my assassin outfit that I'm still wearing (almost three days in a row now) and make my way toward the Victor's Village. A lot of Twelve is decimated, but the Victor's Village stands curiously unharmed. As if the Capitol didn't want to ruin something they had built themselves, to hell with everyone else.

I slam my open palm against the door when I get to the threshold. "Katniss!" I yell, smacking my palm against the door again. I continue smacking the door until my palm is red and raw. I know she's home. She wouldn't be out hunting in the rain. She's home and she's ignoring me. Very mature.

Finally the door opens as I pull my hand back to smack it again. I lower my arm to my side as Katniss reveals herself in the doorway, a flash of concern in her eyes as she sees how thoroughly soaked I am from standing in the rain for the last five minutes. "What do you want, Johanna?"

I pull my hood down, letting the rain pelt my hair and the face on my skin. I'm sure my make-up, if it hasn't already been ruined over the last two days, is now a mess. "What do you think, brainless? You left me in Thirteen without saying goodbye!"

Katniss closes the door behind her, staying beneath the cover of the awning above the door. "I told Haymitch to -"

"I know what you told Haymitch. What did I do, Katniss, hm? What did I do?" Tears begin mixing with the rain on my face as I stare into her grey eyes. "I can't think of a single moment where I didn't put you first. I have protected you and loved you since the day we met. I don't even know how to do anything else anymore. So what, please fucking tell me, did I do that you needed to get away from me?"

I hate how pathetic my voice sounds, but I can't do anything to stop it. I want to hide my desperation but it leaks through. "I'm sorry. I just..." Katniss inhales a shaky breath, her own tears glistening in her eyes. "I saw you with her and I sort of lost it."

"Saw me with Cashmere?"

Katniss nods. Her eyes drop down to the wet cement below my feet. "The way you look at her. Johanna, you're in love with her." The way she says it, with such finality, takes me by surprise.

"I love _you_," I say softly, lifting my hand to touch her face. Katniss takes my hand and puts it back next to my side. A sudden realization hits me: she didn't come here to give herself space. She came here to break things off with me. "Are you serious? You honestly think that I am capable of loving anyone else?"

"I do," she says sadly, one soft sob emitting from her throat before she clears it. "You care much more than you let on, I've always known that. You have a huge heart, hidden beneath all this attitude. I wanted to be the only one who could possess that big heart."

"You are," I insist.

"No, I'm not." Katniss shakes her head, stepping out into the rain with me. She brushes the hairs that are stuck to my cheeks behind my ear. "You do love her, that's clear. And I think you are in love with her, even if you can't admit it to yourself. You even said it; you haven't thought of anyone else but me since we met. I don't think you can clearly see that you have feelings for her."

"So that's just it? I don't even get a chance to make things right?" My voice is so high, so shrill, that it sounds totally unlike me.

"What do you want me to do, Johanna? Sit here while you go off and decide whether or not you're in love? I can't do that." She cups my face, her body shaking hard with sobs. "I love you so much. But if I'm not the only one in your life, I can't do this."

I want to shake her. I grab her shoulders and stare into her eyes with as much determination as I can muster. "You are the only one."

"No I'm not Johanna!"

"Yes you fucking are!"

"You can't stand here and tell me you don't love her! You're an awful fucking liar! I _saw _you! Nobody looks at their friends like that, Johanna! Just say it." Her voice cracks with tears as I slide down to my knees, wrapping my arms around her legs. She looks down at me, pushing my head back from her thighs. "Just say it," she whispers.

But I can't. I can't say it because if I say it, I know it will mean the end for us. All this time, all this fucking time we've spent fighting for our lives just to have a shot at a life together. And now that all the harm that could have befallen us is removed from the world, she wants to bail. "Please don't give up on me." I get myself to my feet, trying to regain my bearings. I can't believe this is happening. This is the kind of thing that happens in my nightmares before Snow walks in and kills Katniss.

"I know you love me. I never doubted that. But if you were truly in love with me, you never could have fallen in love with her." I want to throw up. I want to throw up and then stick a gun in my mouth and blow my brains out. "I just don't think I'll ever stop wondering if you still love her. I want you to be happy, and I want to be happy. But I don't think I can be happy with you if I'm constantly worried you're thinking of someone else. Especially if that someone else loves you as much as she does."

I clear my throat, rubbing my face on my sleeve. "So this is it? I never see you again? Katniss, I can't..."

She runs her fingers through my damp hair, getting tangled in my messy, wet locks. "We'll see each other again, I promise. I just need some time."

"No amount of time is going to erase how I feel for you," I say, shaking my head.

"I know. But you mean too much for me just to cut you out of my life."

"But you have to." Her eyes lock with mine, filled with sadness. "I don't know if I can see you again if I can't love you."

A long silence falls between us as Katniss considers this. I see her chest jerking with silent sobs, her hand rises to cover her mouth. She lowers her hand to her chest and sighs. "Then this is goodbye, Johanna." She takes my face in her hands and steps forward, kissing me fiercely but chastely on the lips. "I love you. And I hope that ...someday, you'll want to see me again. I'll be here."

I nod my head numbly and back away from her door. As I walk away from her door, I can't help but look over my shoulder at her. She looks so broken. I want to fix her but I'm the problem. Me and my stupid heart. I want to tear it out of my chest and just die. Without Katniss, I don't know who I am. All of what has shaped me in the past two years has been her.

Without her love, I don't know what to do.

* * *

I somehow make my way back to Seven. I don't even remember the trip. Maybe a train or a hovercraft, but I'm at my house sometime after seeing her, still in my outfit. I don't even know how long it took. In fact, I think several days have passed because I definitely don't smell good anymore. I smell like rain and the outdoors and sweat. And alcohol, apparently, as I can smell that coming out of my pores. I don't even remember drinking. But now that I'm aware of it, there's definitely a sluggishness to the way I'm walking.

When I arrive I smell coffee, and I immediately assume I must be dreaming. Have I really gone that far off the deep end? I open the door to my house and the smell of freshly brewed coffee is so overwhelming I nearly faint. The scent of coffee is so strongly tied to my father that I'm almost half expecting to see him in the kitchen when I finally make my way in there.

Instead I find Cashmere, sitting at my kitchen table, reading a newspaper with her glasses on as she sips coffee. She looks so comfortable there that I almost begin to think I'm in the wrong place. She looks up from her newspaper and smiles at me. Her smile turns serious as she takes in my appearance. I haven't seen any mirrors or any windows recently, but I imagine I look like hell.

"Holy shit Johanna." It's uncommon for Cashmere to use my first name unless she's being very serious (or that time we slept together) so I blink in confusion. "You are carrying a distinct odor."

"What are you doing here?" I haven't used my voice in a while and it's scratchy like my vocal chords are covered in rust.

Her head ducks down, her gaze faltering. "Haymitch told me what happened. I thought maybe you could use a friend."

"He told you what happened? What exactly did he tell you?" I don't stop the anger from edging my voice as I stand in the doorway of my kitchen, staring at the former Career.

She looks surprised at my tone and speaks cautiously. "Just that Katniss had up and left to Twelve and you had gone after her. I figured after you guys talked, you might want someone to talk to. Or at least, not be alone." I'm staring at her so hard she shifts in her seat. "Is it my glasses? I know they're dorky but I need them for reading..." She moves them self-consciously off her face and places them on the table.

I want to scream at her. This girl who infiltrated my life and crept up on my heart without my noticing. This girl who unintentionally ruined the best thing that ever happened to me. But it isn't her fault. All she did was love me and whether I knew it or not, I loved her back. I don't know to what extent; Katniss seems to think I'm in love with her. I haven't exactly had a great grip on my emotions as of late so I don't know if that's true.

I don't know how it happens but I end up with my back against the wall, sliding down on to the floor as I crumble into tears. Cashmere's eyes widen with alarm as she drops her newspaper and skirts around the table to come to my side. Through my hard, choked tears I manage, "She broke up with me." Cashmere takes me into her arms, in spite of the fact that I probably smell worse than ten Haymitchs on a bender in a garbage can.

My mind is working about ten minutes behind reality as I don't remember climbing the stairs to my second floor bathroom. But suddenly I'm stripped of the uniform I've been in for over a week, and I'm underneath warm, soapy bathwater. I slide below the water line, submerging myself in the water. I stay under as long as I can, until my lungs are bursting and I come up, gasping for air.

"Jesus, Mason, you scared the shit out of me. Are you trying to drown yourself in the tub?" I finally become aware that Cashmere is next to me, lathering my hair with conditioner. I close my eyes and lose myself in the sensation of her gentle touch. I relax into her ministrations on my head, leaning forward as I bring my knees to my elbows.

"Thank you," I whisper as Cashmere uses the shower head to rinse the conditioner out of my hair.

"Hey, this is what friends are for, right? Don't worry about it. You've done a lot for me. The least I can do is get this stink off of you." I roll my eyes and smile half-heartedly. I don't know when I'll stop owing this girl for her kindness. If you had told me only a year ago that the person washing a week's worth of dirt out of my hair would be a Career from One, I would have laughed in your face.

...

I dress in my pajamas and give Cashmere some of my clothes to wear. I'm a little bit more petite than her so my tank top just barely reaches the top of her shorts. She ushers me into my bed, lighting the candle on my beside table. I take her hand as she drops the match on the table. I don't have to say anything because I think she can feel the desperation in my touch. I don't want to be alone.

She nods her head and slips under the covers with me, wrapping her arm around me and placing a kiss on my shoulder before laying on the pillow. After the exhausting week I've had it doesn't take me long to fall into a deep sleep.

* * *

We spend the next six months like this - I go hunting in the mornings to clear my head, she stays home and reads some of my mother's books. It still hurts my heart to think of Katniss; I don't know that will ever change. Cashmere was right - I did need a friend. Every day she is there with a helpful ear, cooking meals, cleaning the house, giving me shit when I try and wallow when the depression becomes a little much.

Slowly, I begin to see what Katniss saw so clearly. Every morning when she greets me with coffee and asks me how my night was (on the rare occasions one of us doesn't scream and the other sleeps with her) I feel my heart opening. And when I do, a little bit of her sunlight leaks in there and warms me from the inside. She makes me smile in a way I haven't since before my father died. Her love, that she gives so readily and without question, is more than I deserve.

In spite of how she feels about me, she's never tried to touch me. It hasn't been awkward, though. It's comfortable. Even though sometimes... it's been difficult. She'll come back from a run, sweaty and exhausted, her hair delightfully tousled. It takes a lot of strength for me to not push her against the wall and taste the sweat on her skin. We'll share a long glance and I know that she wants to kiss me. And slowly, I begin to wish that she would.

I guess all that pent up frustration has gotten to me because one night I have a particularly vulgar dream about her and I wake up in a sweat. I must not have been restless or yelled because she's not in the bed. As I squint and look out the window I realize that it's midday; she wouldn't still be sleeping anyway. I should just take a cold shower and cool off, but I do not. Instead I go downstairs, where she is leaning against the kitchen counter, taking a big bite of a sandwich.

Her hair is down and rumpled around her face. She has her glasses - dark, thick-rimmed ones that she wears sometimes at night when she reads or to the market. Right now they've completely turned me into a horned-up monster. "Nice of you to finally join us in the land of the living and awake," she quips as she swallows her food. I don't respond, I simply cross over to her and take the sandwich from her and toss it on the counter behind her. "What the hell?" I grab the sides of her face and pull her in for a deep kiss. I use the moment she gasps in surprise to push my tongue into her mouth, pressing her body further into the counter. I move my hands from her face to each side of her body, gripping the counter and pinning her in place.

She tastes like strawberry jam and I feel the sweet sugar on her tongue. Her hands brush across my skin, across my hips, my stomach, my arms like she can't figure out where to go. She decides to rest her wrists on my shoulders, gripping them hard with her fingertips. The frenzied kiss slows down, becoming much deeper, much more meaningful with each touch.

My hands move on their own accord as I unbutton the top of her jeans and quickly pull down her zipper. I waste no time in sliding my hand underneath the fabric until my fingers move against her sopping wet sex. I groan into the kiss. "Fuck, you're so wet, C. I barely touched you," I tease against her lips, grinning.

In between the hitches of her breath she slowly opens her eyes and glares at me. "You don't even have to touch me and that happens." I growl at that piece of information, taking her lips in another kiss as I move the tops of my fingers against her clit. Her hips move against my hand as I coat my fingers in her wetness, my hand pressed tightly against her beneath the restrictive feeling of her jeans.

She pulls away first, my eyes still closed as I breathe in and out of my nose to control my breathing. "Johanna?" The softness of her voice takes me by surprise so my eyes snap open. I stop the movement of my hand and remove it slowly from inside her. She exhales a shaky breath as I do so. I finally see how she looks: confused, but blissful.

"I'm sorry." I look down toward our stomachs which are still pressed against each other and her fly unzipped, then I drag my eyes up her chest and to her face. "Actually I'm not."

"Well, I mean, neither am I, but like... what was that for?" She doesn't move her hands from around my neck, rubbing the small hairs beneath my hairline. It's things like this, these small touches, that are part of the reason why I love her. She's like me - we can be okay with words when we want, but we're more girls of action. We need this physicality.

"I want you," I reply in a low voice, looking at her beneath hooded eyes. She bites her lip, her chest still rising irregularly from our kiss. She looks unsure of me, or my words, and I sigh. "When Katniss left me, do you know why?" She shakes her head. Of course she doesn't. We haven't talked about it; she never asked. I think she didn't want to know. "Because she thought I was in love with you. She didn't want to be with me if my heart was elsewhere."

Cashmere looks surprised. "Why would she think that? If I even thought for a second you were in love with me, I'd have been on that."

I smirk, but my mouth falls into a line as I regain my seriousness. "Because when I thought you were dying in the Capitol I almost lost my mind. And I didn't leave your side for two days. Because she saw how I looked at you and she knew. She knew what I didn't know. That I _am _in love with you."

She sighs, gently pressing her lips against mine before pulling away to stare into my eyes again. "I've never been in love before. When I realized I was in love with you, I thought it would go away."

"When did you realize that?" I ask, genuinely curious. I know she wanted me before the Quarter Quell, she made that pretty clear by pinning me against the wall and inviting me to her room.

Without a beat she answers, "I liked you the day I saw you get reaped. I wanted you the second I saw you in the arena when I was a mentor. And I loved you from the moment we met." I'm so shocked I can't answer her. I just stare into her eyes as her cheeks flush with embarrassment. I had no idea she'd felt that way about me for so long. In my defense there was a lot going on.

"I thought it was fleeting like some kind of passing crush. But you stuck inside me. I felt you in every inch of me, always. And seeing you with Katniss killed me. But I guess being in love means being selfless sometimes, because when I saw how happy she made you, I had to feel better. I wanted you to be happy. More than that, I wanted to be the reason you were happy. Since I wasn't, I figured I'd just settle for hopefully still being in your life."

"And when we had sex? That didn't fuck you up?" I ask, raising my eyebrow. I haven't been able to forget that night. I had told myself I was doing it for her. I was trying to help her through her feelings for me. Lying to her. But as I've begun to look over my actions, there was a lot of love present that night, whether I would admit to it or not.

"The single best night of my life," Cashmere responds, smiling. "You were the first person to touch me like that... like I meant something. I knew you didn't love me, not in the way I love you. But you did it anyway. You cheated on the only girl you ever loved just to make me happy. Sure, it broke my heart a little. I gladly take that pain in my heart for just a piece of your love."

I can see the restrained hope in her eyes. It's actually kind of adorable. "But you still love her."

I nod. "A part of me always will. I can't deny that. I won't deny that." I reach my hand up and move her hair behind her ear, tracing her jaw with my fingertips. "But I am here with you. And I want to be here with you. And if you'll take it, I'll give you everything I can."

Tears begin to glisten in her green eyes, sparkling like emeralds as she looks at me. Her mouth moves into a lopsided smile as she presses her lips against mine. "Even if you gave me half, it would be more than enough."

I grin at her, pulling my head back. "I'm a Mason. We don't do anything halfway."

Her eyebrow raises in challenge as she takes my hands in hers and begins pulling me toward the doorway. When we're halfway up the stairs she grins. "Well if you don't mind I'd like to test that theory." She drags me into the bedroom and slams me against the door. For a moment she looks worried, like she hurt me, but when she sees the unbridled desire I have inside me she grins.

She kisses me hard, grabbing the sides of my neck and trying to convey all of her emotions at once with every kiss. It's overwhelming and wet with tears and saliva and hot and my heart is beating hard out of my chest. She goes to take her glasses off and I still my hand over hers. "Don't." Her eyes flicker up at me with uncertainty. "I like you just as you are."

"You don't have to lie to me, I'm already in love with you." She smirks at me and pulls me in for another kiss, and I pull her away from me.

"I told you, I'm not a very good liar."

* * *

**A/N: Thanks again for reading! Let me know what you guys thought. I wanted to do justice to Joniss but not take away from the evolution of Jo and Cash. I can't say it didn't absolutely break my heart to break up Joniss though.**

**Not sure when/if I'll get around to writing another fic, so thank you all again for your amazing and totally undeserved reviews.**

**IN THE MEAN TIME please hop over and read my good friend Holly's new AU Joniss piece "The Girl Next Door." It's awesome already. And of course read her non-AU fic "There's Nowhere Else I'd Rather Be" if you haven't. GET TO IT.**


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